Dismantle the Distortionist
by Phentys
Summary: It is not the duty of Gods to make mortal men repent. Cyrus is torn, a broken man, from the Distortion World, while Giovanni's own plans crumble beneath him time and time again. Whether it be by catastrophic injury or by the voice of constant failure, they've both hit their lowest points. Maybe there's safety in numbers.
1. A Call from the Void

It was perfect.

No, really. It was everything he could have wanted. Why make a new world if the perfect one was already in existence? Floating islands, connected by escherian waterfalls and kelp-like trees, were all he could see as far as his eyes could look. Beyond them there was only churning darkness, perhaps residual of the abyssal void from which this world and his own were created. But it held the one quality which Cyrus had valued above anything else, literally not a soul in sight. He himself was a husk, as he had been for years, and Giratina…well, regardless whether or not it had a soul, it wasn't human. It didn't matter. Cyrus had found his place in the universe, and he was satisfied.

That great, serpentine form approached him, slowly curling out of the darkness, thin wings unfurling as the islands around Cyrus shifted. It settled before him, coiled in a sort of figure eight, freezing only at the exact moment that everything else did.

"Is this what you wanted?" It didn't speak aloud, but Cyrus felt the inquiry in his mind.

"Precisely."

The thing seemed somewhat put off by his response, but it moved in what Cyrus assumed to be a disinterested shrug before retreating to the deeper parts of the void. In the week or so that Cyrus had been in the Distortion World, he hadn't needed to eat, drink, or sleep; a useful pattern if nothing else, as he was unsure whether or not the vegetation here was safe to consume. He spent nearly all of his time simply pacing, thinking, wandering deep as he could get; slowly becoming more accustomed to how to traverse the strange terrain. Giratina would sometimes return from the void to watch him. With no sun, Cyrus lost track of time, but he figured every few weeks or so the thing would fly by overhead, or even follow him for a while. Giratina seemed to be expecting something of him, but what did Cyrus have at this point to offer?

"Have you nothing to say for yourself?" It asked once as it glided slowly past him.

"This is all I wanted."

It had turned abruptly away from him when he said that, diving back into the void. for a while thereafter the void was much darker, but eventually the ambient lighting returned and Cyrus resumed his wandering. He had no idea what sort of answer it had expected; it came to Spear Pillar knowing what he was trying to make, and took him here. Did it want him to change his mind?

"Do you not regret what you've brought upon yourself?" Another time it came, stopping him suddenly as he was moving between islands. "Are you not saddened by your current state?"

"Why would I be?" Cyrus had replied in earnest. A shudder ran through him, which he realized had originated from Giratina.

"You are totally alone."

"I'm aware."

"Nobody loves you."

"Nobody ever has."

Giratina recoiled slightly at the blunt statement, but then suddenly it came close to Cyrus's face.

"This is not the world you seek. It is not your world at all." Now it growled, aloud for the first time in front of Cyrus, opening its beak to bare fangs. "You are an intruder."

"You brought me here." Cyrus stated.

"As a punishment, which you seem to have not understood." Each of the claws of Giratina's pointed wings drove into the ground in pairs, upsetting Cyrus' balance. "You will die here– do you understand that?"

"I do." Cyrus righted himself.

"Then beg."

"For what?"

"To be sent back." It closed the distance between their faces, the shining crown of sulphur nearly touching him. It smelled like burnt flesh, thick and metallic, stinging Cyrus's nostrils.

"Why?"

It drew back, and Cyrus figured it would again retreat to the void as it usually did. Instead, Cyrus's vision suddenly burned white; a discordant shriek pierced his ears, and something was blasted against the left side of his face and chest. He fell back, disoriented, and as his apparent injuries began to sear in pain, he shielded himself with his right hand.

"It is not my responsibility to make you repent, human!" Giratina roared, the thunder echoing around Cyrus, "I will suffer this intrusion no longer!"

Cyrus's right arm was suddenly crushed in Giratina's jaws as he was snatched from the ground, his shoulder violently dislocated. Then he was thrown down, striking stony ground. Knife-like rocks tearing into him, into his abdomen, his throat, and he fell again. His vision still bleached white Cyrus crashed, a rock piercing his left forearm through, more slicing his legs, the back of his head. Falling. Crashing. Falling. Crashing. Cyrus could feel the blood pouring from him, and with every blast against the rock something else broke. He couldn't even scream; his whole body was in splinters, totally shattered, and still he fell and crashed, fell and crashed. The last thing he felt was one final strike, a rock against his left temple, that made his teeth ring as everything instantly split to black.

Suddenly he was choking. Something was lodged in his throat, obstructing his airway and Cyrus was instantly overwhelmed with panic. Still shrouded by blackness, he tried to move his hands to his face, but something held his arms; in fact, he couldn't move at all. Feeling slowly returned to him, first as intense pins and needles in his right arm, then in the stinging across the skin on the left side of his face and chest, and what felt like something stuck onto his inner elbow. The pain from a dozen deep lacerations slowly set in, exasperated by the panic of choking, to the point that Cyrus didn't notice right away when light began to flood into his eyes, and the clicks and whirrs of machinery around him.

Light gave way to color, but it was still mostly white; he was in some cold room, shapes moving around him. He realized that whatever was on his inner elbow was actually in his elbow, stuck beneath the skin. As the light organized itself, Cyrus was able to blink away tears of pain and made out a door, a light teal curtain; he could now feel on his skin some papery garment, and the heavier weight of a blanket. He realized the thing in his throat was a trach tube; the thing in his elbow must be an IV port.

A hospital.

Cyrus felt a deep pit form in his gut. Most of Sinnoh had heard of Team Galactic by the time he made his move at Spear Pillar. It was not possible that nobody realized what had happened; even if he hadn't seen the outcome itself, at the very least there would have been a portal at the mountain's summit, visible from the base. If he were truly back in the mortal world, what would it mean that—

"I think he's awake."

Cyrus's eyes darted to the source of the voice, a young nurse standing in the door of what was apparently his ICU room. An older woman in scrubs and a lab coat stepped past the nurse and into the room. The woman walked slowly closer, producing a small flashlight from her pocket, but then put it away.

"I'm not even going to check for dilation, his eyes are following me," She said, turning back to the nurse. "Go get Colin and have her bring me an adult dose of…something. Let's start with ativan and see how that helps."

"Got it, doc." The nurse, a tall, skinny man, glanced back at Cyrus as he left.

The doctor pulled the blankets down off Cyrus's chest, revealing to him the thick bandages covering most of his visible skin and the wires connected to stickers on his chest snuck between layers of gauze. Cyrus followed the IV line from his left inner elbow up to the bag of blood hanging from a pole at the head of the bed. His eyes wandered down to his right arm, which he couldn't see well in his periphery, but was completely swaddled in layers and layers of bandages. He realized it was numb when the doctor gently put her hand on his chest.

"The ventilator's off, you're already breathing on your own." There was a tone in her voice that Cyrus couldn't quite pinpoint. "We're gonna remove this trach so you can talk. Do you understand?"

Cyrus nodded as best he could, moving his head too much made him briefly able to feel the tube even into his chest, which made him gag.

"Okay. We're going to use this suction tube," The doctor detached some sort of device from the wall, "and we're going to make sure your airway and mouth are clear of any secretions; the tube is held in place by a balloon, so we need to make sure you won't aspirate anything when we deflate it."

The nurse returned to the room with two IV vials.

"Thanks, Martin." She took the vials from him, and moved to the other side of Cyrus's bed. "First I'm just going to flush your IV line, and give you some ativan. It'll help you relax, but it might burn a little for a second."

She pushed the first vial into the IV port in Cyrus's exposed elbow, apparently just saline, shortly followed by the second. As warned, a mild burning spread from Cyrus's arm into his body, but it quickly diminished and Cyrus felt his limbs become heavy.

The doctor adjusted Cyrus's bed so that he was sitting as close to upright as possible, and inserted the tube into his mouth next to the trach to suck up any saliva and blood that was left after his ordeal. The nurse held the tube's position while the doctor removed the device holding it to his face, and then pressed some button on the tube as Cyrus felt air pass around it, marginally improving his ability to breathe.

"I'm going to count to three, and on three I want you to cough while I pull the tube out." The doctor instructed. She took the nurse's position holding the trach tube, allowing the nurse to leave the room, and looked back down at Cyrus. "One, two…three."

Cyrus coughed, then gagged, then dry-heaved as the tube was pulled from his throat; he clamped his hands over his mouth— hand? Trying to stifle his continued coughing, Cyrus's eyes fell on his right arm, which he still couldn't move, slowly coming to the realization that the mound of bandages it terminated in was notably smaller than his closed fist.

"I'm Dr. Arzt." The doctor, finally introducing herself as she disposed of the trach tube and lowered Cyrus's bed back to its original position. "I'm the on-duty doctor right now; you're at Eterna City Trauma Center's intensive care unit."

Cyrus tried to ask what had happened, but only a low squeak came out, his eyes not moving from his right arm.

"You were found three days ago at the foot of Mt Cornet; most of your injuries were consistent with having fallen off one of the cliffs." Dr Arzt explained as she situated oxygen tubes beneath Cyrus's nose and trailing behind his ears. Martin re-entered the room.

"I do need to know your name and date of birth so we can get a record started for you; you didn't have a wallet or any form of ID on you, besides what you were wearing." When he didn't answer right away, she gently put a hand on his shoulder. "Your hand was already gone by the time paramedics found you, but we're doing everything we can to save the rest of your arm. I'll get the trauma team in here to discuss the extent of your injuries in just a moment, I just need your name and date of birth."

He paused again.

"Are you having difficulty remembering?" Dr. Arzt asked. Cyrus shook his head; he knew his damn name, but between the bright lights, the din of activity from the rest of the ICU, and the shock of his missing hand, the difficulty was in getting his mouth to form the words.

"Can you type one-handed?" Martin turned the laptop cart around and pushed it towards Cyrus. He weakly reached out with his left hand, felt the keyboard beneath his fingers and tried to estimate where the exact keys were.

XGDGX AVBER SUVRS

"He can't see the keyboard, Martin." Dr. Arzt sighed.

Cyrus's hand fell to the edge of the bed, and with some effort he pulled it back to his side. Even that exasperated his exhaustion, but he still managed to finally choke something out.

"C-Cyrus."

Martin stiffened, turning the laptop cart back towards himself to clear the name field and type in his response.

"Your full name?" Dr. Arzt inquired, moving closer to hear him better.

"…Cyrus Abner Solb-berg," he managed, somewhat breathlessly. Whatever medication they had administered had calmed him significantly but it wasn't doing much for the pain. When his voice inevitably failed him again, he took a moment to remember how to sign numbers so he could tell the doctor his date of birth. With this information, Martin abruptly left the room.

"Odd," Dr. Arzt remarked, probably more to herself than to Cyrus, "he's normally not that terse…Er, anyways, Cyrus, was it? I'm going to go get the trauma doctor that helped you a few days ago so we can give you a run-down of your injuries; I'll be right back."

And right back she was, with another doctor and another two vials. Cyrus didn't catch what the medication was, but it took the pain clean out and made the room spin every time he moved his head. The new doctor was followed in by another man…and another. And another. A fourth person came in and handcuffed Cyrus to his bed, as if he were even remotely capable of walking. Dr. Arzt and the other doctor stood aside and the four strangers, in unison, flashed International Police badges; about what Cyrus had expected.

Cyrus mostly tuned out as the police told him he was under arrest for an attempted crime against humanity, read him his rights, and explained that he'd be going straight to trial as soon as he was moved from ICU to a general ward. Dr. Arzt, apparently bewildered by this development, stared at the second doctor as the topic of conversation changed from Cyrus's attempt to destroy the universe to the injuries of his very mortal body.

Obviously, there'd been a complete amputation of the right hand, as well as extensive crushing to the radius and ulna, he'll be lucky if the upper arm is salvageable. Severe concussion, possible traumatic brain injury, a broken lumbar vertebra, broken tailbone, broken ankle, and a few broken ribs. Third degree chemical burns across the left side of the face and chest, extending slightly around his side and towards his back. Severe lacerations across the throat, chest and back, as well as down the left forearm. As well as less severe lacerations on the upper right thigh, the fronts of both shins, and the left side of the abdomen.

Medical procedures already done have included a skin graft harvest from his right thigh, a thoracotomy performed on the left side of his chest (Cyrus shuddered imagining someone's hand on his heart), and the usage of many, many stitches to try to patch his numerous lacerations back together. Further care would mostly be to keep things from getting infected, especially the skin grafts, and to keep an eye on how his brain injury develops. There's a chance that the damage done to his spine or brain will cause him problems with motor function, but they'd be able to test that further at a later point.

"You need to rest at this point; it's the only thing that's going to help a concussion. And you lost a lot of blood." The other doctor said. "Do you have any questions for us, Cyrus?"

Cyrus shook his head. He understood fully what this entailed; given the court's previous treatment of psychopaths, probably a life sentence. How would he get back to the Distortion World from a prison cell? His only real question was one that neither the doctors nor the police could answer: why had Giratina let him have a taste of paradise only to rip him away? He paused; suddenly he did have a question for them. His voice failing him again, Cyrus was able to gesture writing well enough for Dr. Arzt to bring him a pen and paper.

How long has it been?

One of the officers looked over his shoulder at the paper and sighed.

"You were last seen by our forces ascending Mt Cornet just over a year ago." He walked back towards the door. "Your admins have made appearances since then, but from what questioning we were able to get done…well, at least one of them believes you to have been taken to another world."

His admins. He'd, admittedly, forgotten about them. Cyrus wanted to ask who had ratted him out- not that he could have doled out any punishment at this point- but he was too exhausted to even write anything more. The two doctors ushered out the police and checked Cyrus's vitals before beginning to leave themselves.

"If you, uh, need anything, there's a little button here." Dr. Arzt put a small remote, wired to the side of his bed, in Cyrus's remaining hand. "Pressing this button will send an alert to the nursing station. You're catheterized, so you don't need to get up to urinate, but basically any other need you have…you know." Whatever tone had been in her voice when they first met had been replaced with something Cyrus was much better at spotting: discomfort. "Uh, good night."

The other doctor left. A pair of security guards were posted outside of the room's door. As Dr. Arzt stepped back into the hallway of the ICU, she turned off the light in Cyrus's room, which was more than enough to send Cyrus tumbling into darkness.

When Cyrus was awoken by pain in his arm and chest, it was still dark. What started as a low throb quickly escalated into what felt like knives tracing the skin graft and the deepest wound on his chest, driving into him every time he took a breath. For a moment he saw stars, and earnestly hoped he'd pass out to avoid the pain, but when he didn't he felt the little remote in his hand and pressed the button.

Ten minutes passed. Twenty. Cyrus was writhing, wheezing in pain; in his mind he saw that blinding light again, and he wasn't sure if he was losing his vision or having a flashback. He pressed the button again, and his vision instantly returned when he heard the door open. There stood Martin, standing still in the doorway. He said nothing.

"Help," Cyrus gasped. With the uncuffed stump he reached for his chest, but ultimately nothing he could do would numb it.

"What?" He glared at Cyrus, hatred in his voice. Cyrus could spot that much.

"Please…" Cyrus's vision was once again filled with stars. Martin's bright carmine hair caught the light from the hall, and Cyrus realized who he looked like. "It…hurts…to breathe…"

"Good."

Cyrus's condition deteriorated, and Dr. Arzt was left scratching her head as to why. When nurses came into the room to give him medication, it rarely had any effect. One day turned into two, constantly in the state between passing out and hyperventilating, and on the third sleepless day a young woman came into Cyrus's room with a note pad and a Lucario.

"Hello, Cyrus. My name is Dr. Bellamy. I am the psychiatric lead for Eterna City General." She put her hand near Cyrus's, and he made an attempt to shake it. "I'm going to ask you some questions and I need you to be open and honest with me. Nothing we say leaves this room unless I believe you or someone else is in immediate danger." She looked at the lucario, who in turn was squinting at Cyrus. "My lucario is a trained therapy pokémon—what is it, buddy?"

Lucario stepped closer to Cyrus, its aura sensors up and its eyes widening. It turned to Dr. Bellamy and barked quietly, looking quickly back and forth between Cyrus's vital monitor and the doctor.

"Dr. Arzt told me his heart rate's been elevated like that for the past three days and they don't know why." She said, probably more to Lucario than to Cyrus, then looked down at her notepad. "I'll make this as fast as possible, OK? I'll just start out with general questions…who is the current champion of Sinnoh?"

"C-Cynthia." Cyrus choked out between shallow breaths, which he'd found were somewhat less painful.

"What city are we in?"

"Eterna…"

"Do you have any existing mental health diagnoses?"

"I've…never seen…a psychiatrist…"

"Fair enough." She jotted something down, but Lucario seemed to be getting somewhat distressed looking at Cyrus. "So you've never been hospitalized for your mental health before?"

"N-no…"

"Do you have any family history of mental health issues?"

"…No…"

"If I asked you to give me the abridged version of your life story, would you be able to do that for me?"

"I was…born and…raised in… S-Sunnyshore…did well in school…not many friends…" Cyrus took a second to catch his breath, wincing when he accidentally inhaled too deeply. "realized I was…empty…in high school…"

"What do you mean, 'empty?'" Dr. Bellamy wrote something on her notepad.

"No soul…"

"Go on," she instructed, writing more.

"Went to college…for engineering…graduated with…high honors." He paused again. "I had a…revelation about…other people."

"Mmm-hm." She was furiously jotting down notes now.

"Emotions…cause pain…and obstruct…progression. I wanted to…make a world…without them…"

"A world of other people who are 'empty?'"

Cyrus nodded.

"I f-founded…Team Galactic…to achieve this… At Spear Pillar…I was taken…to my…perfect world…by Giratina…"

Dr. Bellamy paused before writing that down.

"But it…wouldn't let me…stay." Cyrus weakly lifted his intact arm and let it fall back to the bed.

"And now you're here?"

Cyrus nodded again. Apparently tired of being ignored, Lucario suddenly put its paw in Cyrus's exposed palm.

Can you rate your pain on a scale of one to ten? Cyrus heard the question in his head and it took a minute to realize that Lucario was the source. Could he answer just by thinking? How did it know he was in so much pain?

Ten. I can barely breathe. Cyrus tried to think clearly, but the stars fading in and out made it hard to focus.

You've been awake for a long time because of this, haven't you?

Nearly three days. I know my limits. I'm going to end up hallucinating soon enough.

Are the nurses in here regularly to give you medication? Lucario asked.

Yes, but nothing they give me does anything, Cyrus struggled to remember anything out of the ordinary. I know one of them hates me.

"Lucario?" Dr. Bellamy leaned closer, and Lucario touched her shoulder with its free paw.

Which one? it asked.

Martin. Tall guy, red hair. Cyrus paused and wondered whether he should mention who Martin reminded him of—

He looks like one of your admins? Lucario shook its head. We'll worry about that later. Dr. Bellamy, call Dr. Arzt and have her test him for the medications he's supposed to be on.

Dr. Bellamy stood up quickly; apparently Lucario's telepathy was just as clear to her as it was to Cyrus. She poked her head out the door and, after a few minutes and a hushed exchange of words, Dr. Arzt entered the room.

"I can't imagine that they haven't been giving him his medication," she said to Dr. Bellamy. "We keep tight records of what's administered to who, and who administered what…there hasn't been anything coming up in the charts or in the inventory."

"My Lucario has never inaccurrately detected pain before, Dr. Arzt." Dr. Bellamy replied. "I don't feel I can complete my own analysis if he's in that much pain; beyond the ethical point, it'd impact the results. I wouldn't be able to accurately give you any diagnosis."

Dr. Arzt knelt by Cyrus's bedside and donned gloves to do something with what Cyrus assumed was the collection bag for his catheter, judging by the visceral discomfort that the moving tube caused. When she stood back up, she handed a plastic cup off to a passing nurse and took the chart hanging from the wipe board near the door.

"Martin, Martin, Stephanie, Natalia, Martin, Katie, Stephanie, Martin, Natalia…" She read down the list of names of the nurses who had been giving him medication and changing his bandages.

"You said—er, through Lucario— that Martin reminded you of someone?" Dr. Bellamy looked back towards Cyrus, still being attended to by Lucario. "One of your admins?"

"He…looks like…Mars…" Cyrus said weakly.

"I don't know if he's got any cousins or siblings that got sucked up into…that." Dr. Arzt said somewhat hesitatingly. "Let me give you something now and see how it works." She quickly replaced her gloves and took two vials out of her pocket. "You're already at the maximum dosage for your weight, but you're due for another dose about now anyhow… Same as before. First one is saline, and the second one will make you feel cold."

He'd heard that a dozen times to no actual effect over the past three days. However, the second vial felt like ice going into his arm for a split second before the pain quickly faded away to unveil his total exhaustion. Cyrus's head lolled to the side as he nearly passed out, feeling for the first time since he'd woken up that he could sleep, and only held onto consciousness to hear what Dr. Arzt and Dr. Bellamy were talking about.

"Three days!?" Dr. Bellamy exclaimed suddenly; Cyrus cracked his eyelids and saw Lucario with a paw on her shoulder. "He hasn't slept in three days due to the pain, Dr. Arzt. Lucario said Cyrus believes Martin hates him…?"

"I tol 'im ih hur' t' breathe, an' he said 'good.'" Cyrus's newfound ability to breath deeply would have made it easier to talk had the medication not also caused him to slur his words. He wasn't even entirely sure if he'd managed to say that out loud, let alone coherently, until Dr. Arzt's eyes widened in shock and she turned, bewildered, to Dr. Bellamy.

"When was this?"

"Uhh…th' nigh' aft'r I wo'e up." The room around Cyrus began to swirl; his battle against unconsciousness wasn't going to last much longer. His eyes finally closed, but he kept listening as well as he could for a while. Dr. Arzt and Dr. Bellamy were urgently discussing the matter at hand, and one of them quickly left the room. He felt Lucario's paw on his hand once again as he overheard talking in the hallway gradually increase in volume until someone began shouting.

"She was my sister! I haven't spoken to her in three years!" Martin. Lucario's paw pressed into Cyrus's palm, but he didn't react. "Like hell am I gonna—"

"Martin! What's gotten into you!?"

"That bastard deserves the pain he's in!" There was scuffling on the floor, a grunt, and the clang of metal on tile. "Get off me!"

Martin's tirade continued as more voices joined in the commotion outside Cyrus's door. Dr. Bellamy, apparently still in the room, quietly closed the door, but it did little to muffle the noise of the crescendoing argument in the hall.

"He said we'd regret if if we gave the patient any of the pain meds," Cyrus heard the voice of a woman closer to the door say. "and I mean, he never said what he'd do, but…"

You can go to sleep. Lucario reassured. Security's handling it.

And with that, Cyrus slipped into the void.

Of course, the whole fiasco with Martin was all over the news, but there was no TV in Cyrus's room; as his condition slowly improved, he'd heard through the other nurses that Martin had been fired, and that there was a not-insignificant number of Sinnohans that openly supported his actions. Stephanie, a nurse who'd been threatened by Martin first-hand, had been kind enough to show him a news clip featuring the hospital's official statement.

"It is not the job of hospital staff to punish criminals." A young man in a suit and tie, probably the spokesperson, stated flatly to the reporter and the InterPol officer nearby. "The doctors and nurses are here to preform medicine for whoever walks in that door. In circumstances where a staff member's integrity may be compromised by emotions, we encourage them to step down from the task in question. The fact that Martin chose not to do this and to instead commit malicious malpractice does not reflect the hospital's philosophy, and he no longer works here."

"Do you offer any statement to Sinnohans like Martin who have lost contact with relatives after they joined Team Galactic?" The reporter asked. The spokesman looked like he was about to respond, but the InterPol officer spoke up instead.

"The longer the Galactic boss is in the hospital, the longer his trial is put off." He thumbed the badge in his hand. "I understand that emotions are running high with the news that he didn't die at Spear Pillar, however he can't be tried from an ICU bed."

"Thanks for your time, men. This has been an update on Monday's breaking news; I'm Chip Carley, SBS."

Stephanie took her phone back once Cyrus had been moved from his bed to a wheelchair. Dr. Bellamy, back to finish her psychoanalysis now that Cyrus was well-rested and not in pain, thanked Stephanie for her help before beginning to wheel Cyrus down the hall, flanked by InterPol guards as well as Dr. Bellamy's Lucario and Togekiss.

"What do you figure they're going to do to me?" Cyrus asked her.

"I've got some courtroom experience, but ultimately your case is…pretty different, in a lot of ways." She replied. "What do you think they're going to do?"

"I've never heard of a psychopath getting less than a life sentence."

"My analysis isn't complete yet, but I have not diagnosed you with psychopathy." Dr. Bellamy turned down a hallway Cyrus hadn't seen before. "We do have one more test to do."

Togekiss, floating slowly down the hallway behind the group, moved closer to the front to press the "open door" button for a new wing of the hospital. One of the guards opened a second door, this one more heavily armored, and they entered a barren gray room, containing only a set of sensors, a monitor, and a mirror. Stephanie, who Cyrus didn't realize had still been with them, helped Dr. Bellamy apply a heart monitor to Cyrus's inner wrist, and a cuff to his upper arm. He'd blocked out the fact that his right arm hadn't been salvageable, but shuddered at the image of his one-armed, scar-covered body while additional sensors were applied to various points of his chest, as well as under his remaining arm. Stephanie put his hospital gown back on.

"These last fo—three go on your palm and the soles of your feet." She said, peeling a final set of sensors hooked up to the monitor.

"What kind of test is this supposed to be?" Cyrus asked Dr. Bellamy, suddenly rather unsure of how calm he felt being handcuffed to the wheelchair.

"Fairly simple, actually; no needles involved." Dr. Bellamy explained as Stephanie and the guards vacated the room. "We're going to leave for a bit; you'll be alone in here for a little over ten minutes. Exactly ten minutes after I close the door behind me, a very loud tone will play from the speaker," she pointed to the ceiling, where there was indeed a speaker, "and after that we'll be back in to get these sensors off you and bring you back to your room."

"Most of your previous 'tests' have been questionnaires and interviews." Cyrus mumbled.

"That's normally enough for formal diagnosis, but in some cases we need…well, numbers." She motioned to the monitor as she ushered her pokémon from the room, herself turning to leave. "We'll see you in ten minutes."

Click.

The door behind Dr. Bellamy locked shut.

Cyrus tried to fight it, but he got antsy in no time at all. In the Distortion World, he'd stayed calm with endless pacing; to be fair, there was nothing to fear in the future right up until that last minute. How mundane: a loud noise. There was no reason to be this fidgety over it, but since childhood Cyrus had immense difficulties dealing with and processing sounds. It was something he'd mentioned in passing to Dr. Bellamy at their previous meeting; as a young child, he'd react to jarring noises as if they physically hurt, and even as an adult he disliked any sound besides white noise. Was this supposed to be torture?

This was the point where he'd wring his hands to bring his attention to something else besides the deafening silence screeching in his ears, but he was missing a critical part of that coping mechanism. He tried to imagine the sounds of hollow winds from the Distortion World, hoping they'd ease the tinnitus, but the sound was interrupted by Giratina's roar and, for a moment, he was falling again, brought back to reality only by the blood pressure cuff inflating. Suddenly the ringing in his ears was a little more bearable, at least in comparison to that discordant shriek that landed him here in the first place. Cyrus absentmindedly picked at the scabs from the skin graft on his face. When Stephanie had caught him doing it back in the ICU, she had put some sort of mitten over his hand to keep him from continuing. At the time he'd seen it as a wild overreaction, but now he figured she saw it as self-destructive.

Of course, that was something he'd kept to himself. Under constant surveillance by not only the InterPol but the doctors, nurses, and occasionally Dr. Bellamy's Lucario, Cyrus had very few opportunities to examine himself a little closer. He'd told Dr. Bellamy that the last time he "felt" anything was in primary school, but in reality, since then he'd sometimes experience something he couldn't accurately describe. Something hurt, but he wasn't sure what; for a long time he'd considered it a physical occurrence; after all, arthritis ran in his family, and it was mostly in his wrists and forearms. Sometimes, however, it'd be in his upper abdomen, just beneath the tip of his sternum, a more bludgeoning pain than the shooting pain he'd feel in his arms, and maybe not exactly something with a physical cause. He'd felt it when his parents reviewed his grades, or the colleges he had been accepted to, or when they found out what he planned on doing with his engineering degree. He'd never really overtly self-harmed, but college professors expressed concern at the degree to which he bit his fingernails and the skin around them, often until they bled. When Dr. Bellamy noticed him doing this, she was quick to offer solutions to reduce the behavior, including covering his fingertips in adhesive bandages. If he still had two hands, he could have easily removed them himself, but the thought of glue and cotton on his teeth was more than enough to deter him from trying. However, the substitute of shredding sheets of paper didn't stick nearly as well, and he quickly turned to picking skin in other places.

Without a clock on the wall, Cyrus had no way to keep track of how deep into the ten minutes he was, and the only thing he could do was continue to scratch at the skin graft and avoid eye contact with his reflection in the mirror. He pulled strands of cotton from the compression garment holding additional grafts to the indented stump that remained of his right shoulder, and only managed to stop himself from peeling off the adhesive sensors off his skin because he knew that errors to the data would likely result in having to undergo this "test" again. It's just a sound, you fool, he thought to himself. Within the past week you've endured near death, a loud noise is not going to kill you. It will be unpleasant for a split second, and then you'll be taken back to your room and you can go to sleep. Yet the anxiety persisted, his heart racing in his ears, and he fought the urge to again recall the sounds of the Distortion World, briefly glancing at himself in the mirror—

GZZRRRRRRRRRRT!

Cyrus screamed, jumped, and slammed his hand into his chest, hyperventilating for a moment while he processed what had just happened. The door swung open and Togekiss preceded the rest of the group, quickly floating over to Cyrus and enveloping him in its light, soft wings. He leaned back into Togekiss's fluffy down and closed his eyes as it hugged him, his heart lowering from his throat back to its rightful position. Footsteps sounded as the others came in, and he once again felt Lucario's paw on his arm. He kept his eyes closed as Stephanie carefully peeled the sensors off his body and undid the blood pressure cuff. When he opened his eyes to look at Dr. Bellamy, his vision was shrouded by the soft, round feathers of Togekiss's wings; it lowered them to reveal the doctor, distractedly writing away on her clip board.

"That wasn't so bad, was it?"

On the day of the trial, Cyrus still couldn't walk. Dr. Arzt had initially been concerned about paralysis, however he didn't have any lack of sensation, just motor control. She'd then hypothesized that there may have been spinal damage from his fall down Mt Cornet, though maybe the nature of his dysfunction matched more with his brain injury. Regardless, it wasn't enough to get Cyrus's trial put off any further; he'd simply have to be present in a wheelchair. Truth be told, Dr. Arzt hadn't really made it clear whether or not he'd be able to regain the function of his legs, but that had little to do with the trial at this point. Cyrus had been taken to the court in an armored vehicle, through the thick-glassed windows of which he could see protesters with signs demanding justice for Martin and Mars, or that the death penalty be reinstated in Sinnoh. There was a second crowd of protesters proclaiming Cyrus as the image of Sinnoh's failure of mental health services, calling for a rehaul of how mentally ill minors are treated, but he didn't get to see much more of them before being shielded by InterPol guards as he was brought into the courthouse.

There would be four witnesses: himself, Dr. Bellamy, Mars, who had apparently been jailed not long after the events of Spear Pillar, and a fourth person the lawyer wouldn't name. The trial would be less about whether or not he had attempted the crime against humanity, because that was beyond question, as his lawyer had informed him; it would be more about whether or not he was rehabilitatable, which would determine whether he was given a life sentence or institutionalization.

"Dr. Bellamy has decided not to diagnose you with psychopathy, for reasons she'll discuss during her own testimony." Sergio, Cyrus's Lawyer, had informed him in the week before the trial. "Our only option, based on her diagnoses of depressive type schizoaffective disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder, is insanity."

"I'm not crazy." Cyrus had stated flatly. "People saw the portal from the foot of the mountain."

"We're not talking about that, Cyrus." Sergio organized the papers he'd spread on the table beside Cyrus's bed. "We're talking about your understanding of emotions. Ultimately the schizoaffective disorder is going to be the main culprit for the behaviors, with OCD and PTSD compounding them."

"I'll not see the light of day again either way."

"We'll see how that pans out." Sergio had replied.

Now Cyrus was behind the stand, the first to speak with his own lawyer and the one representing the people of Sinnoh. He told them both what he'd already told everyone else: he believed that most human suffering was either directly or indirectly caused by emotions, and that they also impeded the scientific advancement of humans as a species, so he wanted to make a perfect world where they didn't exist. When Giratina appeared at Spear Pillar, rather than kill him, it took him to the Distortion World, apparently hoping he'd regret his attempts. When he showed no remorse, it expelled him from the realm, throwing him down Mt Cornet and back into the mortal world.

"Would you do it again?" The prosecuting lawyer asked. "Do you still seek to create your 'perfect world?'"

"No." Cyrus answered, quite honestly. "If I had known that the perfect world already existed, I would have not gone to such measures to try to make one."

"How do you feel about your former admin being here to testify?"

Cyrus shrugged; when the judge prompted him for a verbal response, he clarified.

"I don't feel anything anymore."

"No further questions."

Mars was next up to bat. She was led to the witness stand in an orange prison jumpsuit, completely disheveled. With tears in her eyes and a wavering voice, Mars told of how she'd joined Team Galactic because she felt alone in the world, and that maybe she'd feel better working for a greater purpose. She'd worked her ass off to get to the level she attained, not only for respect from her peers, but also because she'd been slowly falling for Cyrus. She told a decently accurate version of his confrontation with her at the Galactic Headquarters, where she'd confessed her love and he told her that her emotions were the very flaw he sought to remove from the world. To impress him she'd worked even harder, doing everything to get him to Spear Pillar; when he'd vanished with Giratina into the void, she was completely distraught. When Charon tried to take over- a surprising development, even to Cyrus- she'd left the team and turned herself in willingly to police. Despite her direct involvement in a plot to destroy the universe, judges took some pity on her plight and had offered her a shortened sentence as long as she agreed to participate in therapy.

"How do you feel about Cyrus now, after a year of therapy?" Sergio asked her. "Has your opinion of him changed?"

Mars was silent for a moment.

"He didn't ever, like…go out recruiting people at their weakest. We came to him." She had to lift both hands to scratch her cheek because of the handcuffs. "There was a time where I hated him for dying- or so I thought- when I still believed he didn't understand what I felt, and maybe he never will. When I first went to jail I felt like he used me specifically because I loved him, because he thought that passion would mean I stayed on-project. But…I mean, the whole situation was fucked—sorry—but I don't feel anymore that he did anything…predatory… I think all he really knew was his end goal."

"No further questions." Sergio sat down.

The prosecuting lawyer, on the other hand, drilled into Mars for Cyrus's recruiting process. She insisted quite plainly that it spread through word of mouth; any "sermons" Cyrus gave were in the security of the Headquarters, and he certainly never went out trying to bring teenagers into it. When pressed about her relationship with her brother, her demeanor changed drastically; she spoke of Martin with disdain, of a condescending older brother whom her parents favored over herself. This took the prosecuting lawyer by surprise; Mars even went on to say that Martin was the main reason she ran away from home in the first place, and she was infuriated that he'd claim on TV that they were close.

"I was so mad I couldn't see straight when I saw him on the news." Mars shook her head and shivered. "Just like him to make this about himself, threaten the other nurses—"

"No further questions," the prosecuting lawyer interrupted. Mars was led back to her seat.

The next witness he saw he didn't even recognize; an exceptionally old man, using a walker to get to the witness stand and leaning heavily upon the rails in order to take his seat.

"Next to testify is Finn Solberg."

Cyrus sat bolt upright when he heard the name. Grandpa Finn. He hadn't seen his grandfather in years, probably a decade actually. Grandpa Finn cleaned his thick-framed glasses on his shirt before beginning his testimony.

"Cyrus's father, my son, initially had me pretty involved in his upbringing." He spoke slowly, staring at his lap. "I didn't live terribly far from Sunnyshore, so while Cyrus was in elementary school I babysat him quite a lot."

"So you've probably got a better image of young Cyrus's mental health than most other people?" Sergio asked.

"I guess." he fidgeted. "The first problem we ran into when he was a kid was that he was rather, uh asocial. And I mean, lots of kids are loners, but Cyrus really hated the attention of other children. He'd often hide under tables in kindergarten, and his teacher also noticed he was going out of his way to avoid loud noises, or activities where he'd be physically touched by his classmates."

"What would happen when he was put in situations like that?"

"He'd freak out. His parents saw them as temper tantrums, you know, to be expected of a really young kid, but uh, his teachers wanted them to take him to a psychiatrist." Grandpa Finn glanced over at Cyrus, and then back at his lap. "They thought he might be autistic or have some other condition like that. They wanted to offer him accommodations for his problems, but they couldn't do the paperwork to get them without a formal diagnosis."

"What did his parents do when they were told this?"

"Total denial, pretty much immediately." Grandpa Finn sighed sadly. "His dad was a pretty asocial kid growing up himself, and where they were both really brilliant scientists…well, they figured nothing could possibly be wrong with their kid. And there's a whole mess of things wrong with that statement, but they refused to take him to a psychologist."

"How did you see these problems develop as Cyrus aged?"

"Uh, the ones he started with generally stayed the same, but new ones popped up every now and then. He started chewing his nails to the point of bleeding when he was in middle school, and he also developed this fear of poisoning pretty young; he wouldn't eat something he hadn't watched someone prepare. Later on, in high school, is when things got really rough for him."

"How so?"

"At first I thought he was just going through a phase, y'know, like teenagers do, but he had this fixation on other people's emotions." He paused. "Initially I think it was tied to how his parents never really…I'm not saying they didn't love him, because they did, but they never acted impressed by anything he did, or tried to get interested in his hobbies. I don't think they realized how much a child needs that." His voice cracked briefly. "He told me one day that the reason other people get sad is because they've experienced happiness for comparison, and that the world would probably be a better place if other people were…"

"…Were what, Mr. Solberg?" Sergio inquired. Cyrus realized that Grandpa Finn had trailed off not from lack of desire to continue, but because he'd started crying.

"…If people were…empty. Like him." Grandpa Finn wiped his eyes with his forearm. "I begged his parents to take him to a psychiatrist. I knew he needed help so bad, but I wasn't his guardian so I couldn't do anything." He hid his face in his hands, and Cyrus felt that disembodied wrist pain again. "He was such a smart boy, such a sweet kid if you sat down and understood him…he wouldn't've hurt a fly when he was younger. He didn't have to end up like this…"

"Thank you, Mr. Solberg. No further questions." Sergio helped him back down from the stand and return to his seat.

Dr. Bellamy strode up when her name was called, her papers under her arm. Sergio and the prosecuting lawyer had apparently arranged that, rather than questioning her, she'd just be providing her analysis for the jurors to process.

"My diagnoses for Cyrus are depressive type schizoaffective disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder." She began. "I do not believe Cyrus to be a psychopath by any stretch; rather, his understanding of human emotion is a delusion, a symptom of his schizoaffective disorder. The behaviors Finn listed that Cyrus's teachers associated with autism I believe to be OCD, and in his current state he's suffering form PTSD due to his encounter with Giratina.

"Schizoaffective disorder is, in layman's terms, an amalgamation of schizophrenia and a mood disorder. There are several subtypes depending on the mood disorder involved; for Cyrus, I diagnosed him on the basis of his feelings of inadequacy, pain with an indeterminate source, fatigue, lack of enjoyment of any activity, and specifically his usage of the word 'empty' to describe his emotional state." She looked over her notes. "In addition to his delusion of emotion and whether he can feel them, Cyrus exhibits disorganized thought patterns and occasional auditory hallucinations; because these symptoms occur in tandem with depressive episodes, I'd categorize this as depressive type schizoaffective disorder rather than schizophrenia.

"Cyrus's obsessive behaviors include nail biting and skin picking, which could also be interpreted as a form of self-harm applicable to his depressive episodes. He, as Finn described, is extremely hesitant to eat foods he didn't himself watch be prepared; this has resulted in significant, unhealthy weight loss during his stay in the ICU. He's described to me in detail his manner of obsessive hand-washing and fear of illness, even recognizing that these behaviors are excessive, but that they grant temporary relief from the anxiety that the thoughts cause. I'm not sure that I consider the hypersensitivity to auditory and tactile stimulation to be accessories to this, however; I do not have the experience to comfortably diagnose adults with autism, but it's something I've very consistently seen in autistic patients in the past.

"Regarding the PTSD, Cyrus has regularly had flashbacks and panic attacks pertaining to the manner in which Giratina expelled him from the distortion world; he suffered massive physical trauma as a direct result, ultimately ending in the injuries you see today, as well as a traumatic brain injury which at the moment has cost him the motor function to his legs. It would honestly be more of a surprise if he didn't develop any sort of post-traumatic stress as a result of this, considering he came very close to death. It's only been two months, however, so for now this is a temporary diagnosis that should be reevaluated at a later point after participating in therapy.

"Lastly, I wanted to discuss why I came to the conclusion that Cyrus's 'emptiness' is a delusion and not psychopathy. For any members of the jury who do not know the medical definition of psychopathy, it refers to a condition in which patients are unable to feel emotion or experience empathy in any way, shape or form; it has no known treatment, and diagnosed psychopaths that commit violent crimes are generally not considered rehabilitatable. Most emotions cannot be measured in a scientific manner, a situation made more difficult by the fact that psychopaths tend to be excellent actors, even able to fool telepathic pokémon. The only emotion we can reliably measure with numbers like heart rate, blood pressure, and perspiration is fear.

"To test whether a potential psychopath is capable of feeling fear, we isolate them for a short period, no longer than half an hour, and inform them that, after a certain amount of time passes, an extremely loud tone will play in the room. There is no clock on the wall nor furnishings beyond equipment used to measure heart rate, blood pressure, and perspiration, so the patient has no way to keep track of time or distract themself. In a psychopath, no measurable change can occur; while they may be able to act anxious, they cannot artifically raise their heart rate or blood pressure, or sweat on command.

"Cyrus began to exhibit anxiety almost immediately when left alone. His heart rate and blood pressure steadily increased over the ten minutes we told him would pass between the door closing and the tone playing, peaking at 159 and 129/81 respectively; he began to perspire within the first five minutes as well. There were even points where he began shaking, and exhibiting the skin-picking behavior I discussed earlier. When the tone played, he screamed and jumped, at which point his heart rate spiked dramatically to 185. A heart rate of over 180 is the equivalent of an intense cardio workout, and aside from jumping at the end, Cyrus was stationary the entire duration of the test. In addition to irrefutable proof that Cyrus is able to feel fear, he was less-than-subtly agitated with me due to the test both on the way back to his room and at our next meeting." Dr. Bellamy turned to face the judge rather than the jury.

"In conclusion, your Honor, I believe Cyrus to be rehabilitatable, and as psychiatric lead for Eterna General Hospital, would recommend inpatient psychiatric care rather than jail time." From her folder, she produced a small packet of papers and handed them to the judge before turning back to the jury. "Schizoaffective disorder is more than treatable; with proper medication and therapy, many patients experience total remission. Even if treatment doesn't completely reduce his symptoms, schizophrenia-type symptoms often end on their own between the ages of fifty and sixty, at which point post-schizophrenic depression would occur, which itself is treatable as well. Beyond the fact that this man can be a functioning member of society with proper mental healthcare, it could cost the nation of Sinnoh far less money to treat him until he's fifty or functional, whichever comes first, than it would to jail him until he dies of old age."

"Thank you, Dr. Bellamy." The judge reviewed the paperwork in front of her. "The jury may now consider the evidence provided today, and make their decision."

Cyrus remained in the lobby, still surrounded by InterPol guards, while the jury deliberated his case. Dr. Bellamy joined him, sitting on a nearby bench.

"You seemed surprised to see your grandfather," She said quietly. "Have you not seen him in a long time?"

"I hadn't seen him since my junior year of high school. My parents told me right after winter break that I wasn't allowed to talk to him any more." Cyrus replied. "Why didn't you tell me what the test was for after it was over?"

"I wanted to gauge whether or not you'd show any anger or distress beyond the end of the test." Dr. Bellamy replied. "It worked in favor of my diagnosis, but I would like to apologize for putting you in distress. Sadly it's really the only way to confirm or exclude genuine psychopathy."

"I understand. I've done some awful things in the name of science myself." He shrugged and gestured around the courtroom.

"And a sense of humor as well." Dr. Bellamy chuckled. "That would have been a fine addition to my testimony—"

A bell rang in the lobby, indicating that the jury had made their decision on whether Cyrus would be jailed or institutionalized. Dr. Bellamy muttered something about it being rather fast, and they were ushered back into the courtroom. One of the jurors, a young woman in a pantsuit, stood and cleared her throat.

"What is the verdict?" The judge asked.

"We the jury find Cyrus Abner Solberg not guilty of an attempted crime against humanity, for reason of insanity. We concur with Dr. Bellamy that he requires hospitalization for his mental health."

"Then it is so." The judge turned to Cyrus. "Cyrus Abner Solberg, I sentence you to intensive inpatient psychiatric care until a point where two or more licensed psychiatrists deem you safe to return to society. I'll be placing you in a medium-security facility for the criminally insane. Do you have any questions?"

Cyrus silently shook his head.

"Very well. Case closed."

In a room with Sergio and Dr. Bellamy, Cyrus was presented with an immense amount of paperwork to review. Consent to treatment, listing a next-of-kin, an emergency contact, dietary restrictions and the exact symptoms his conditions caused. Dr. Bellamy also presented him with some 'optional' stuff; naming someone to be in charge of your property rather than the state during extended hospitalization, HIPPA paperwork to keep anyone he so desired informed on the state of his health, as well as sheet titled "Care of Owned Pokémon."

"You don't have to fill that one out if you don't want to, since all of your pokémon are boxed." Sergio told him. "If you instead want someone else to care for them and have access to your Pokémon Center account to be able to withdraw them, you'd specify there. You could also specify whether you'd want them to remain boxed, or if you wanted them to be released."

Cyrus stared at the sheet while Dr. Bellamy and Sergio discussed how the case went and the terms of Cyrus's hospitalization. He thought about his pokémon in the PC, effectively frozen in time; if and when he returned and was able to see them again, he wouldn't be the same man. They wouldn't know him anymore; did they really deserve to be brought back into reality with a master they'd never even seen?

Cyrus checked the box for his pokémon to be released, signed the sheet as best as he could with his left hand, and stared off into the distance as he was taken by armored vehicle to the facility where he'd be spending the foreseeable future.


	2. Returns

"For having an artificial God on my team, that sure still went to shit."

Giovanni grumbled more to himself than to anyone else, staring out the window of his jet as Alola grew small and the ocean, illuminated by a sky full of stars, stretched beneath him. His admins had retreated to their own cabins as soon as the plane took off, apparently aware that Gio's blasé attitude at the Aether Paradise had been a façade to hide the agitation of another failure at the hands of a child.

"It's almost as if your failures are because of you as a person, rather than the pokémon with which you battle."

Gio whirled around, eyes locking on a figure shrouded by the darker corner of the room. A pair of violet eyes met his, and a dull purple tail whipped back and forth from the shadows. Mewtwo. It had once again broken out of its Master Ball to berate him.

"I finally manage to put a roof over your head, and this is how you treat me?" Gio shoved the papers before him off his desk and pinched the bridge of his nose. "You're the one with problems, you fuckin' _thing_."

"Terribly sorry to disappoint, but my very existence is nobody's fault but your own." Mewtwo stepped out of the shadows, but was blocked from approaching Gio any closer by his growling Persian. "Shall I call you 'Father' while I'm at it?"

"Don't."

"Daddy."

" _Stop_."

Mewtwo cackled, revealing fangs Gio didn't know were there. It sat on the floor, where Persian again snarled at it. He'd put so much damn work into seeking it out at Cerulean Cave, finally uncovering that first clone he'd has his scientists make. He'd beaten the hell out of the Silph Co. President to get the Master Ball, he'd prepared his strongest team in case the bastard had given him a faulty unit; if the Rainbow Rocket thing was gonna work, like hell was he gonna be the only one without a Legendary on his team, and what better than one he'd had custom made all those years ago? But even with that, and even with the mega stone to turn it into the most powerful pokémon to ever walk the Earth—

"Don't pity yourself too much," Mewtwo hummed, reading Gio's thoughts. "The rest of them were defeated by the child as well. Whether that was their own weakness or a result of your poor leadership, of course, is another question entirely."

"You'll fuckin' see." Gio hissed, somewhat ashamedly picking his paperwork up off the floor and re-organizing it on his desk. "It was test for the Ultra Wormholes, not for the fortitude of those other bastards."

"Of course." Mewtwo clicked its tongue, cautiously reaching out to pet Persian, but was promptly swiped at. "And, once you get your nice little army of Ultra Beasts, they'll fail you in the same manner I have, and in the same manner you've failed _your_ creator."

Mewtwo telekinetically caught the flying coffee mug long before it could have struck, and gently placed it on the nearby table. It side-eyed Gio, a smirk splitting its face while Gio turned back to his plans, red-faced with rage.

He'd plotted out his next steps quite a while ago, but ultimately he was now second-guessing his decisions—

"What a shock," Mewtwo declared sarcastically.

—since the InterPol had handled Lusamine's invasion of Ultra Beasts so cleanly. Originally his plan after the Rainbow Rocket fiasco were to do as Lusamine had done: summon Ultra Beasts, get them under his control, and essentially have an easy-access army of legendary pokémon. Any earthly Legendary would hardly allow itself to be caught and commanded, but the Ultra Beasts seemed disturbingly easy to control. However, he realized now that it may not be the most brilliant idea. Nanu told him more than once about the close friend who'd been killed by Guzzlord, and when Mewtwo had quite joyously let Gio have a taste of Lusamine's memory of being possessed…well, it didn't bode well to say the absolute least.

He needed a better team together; he had grunts coming out of his ears, since there was never any shortage of lost twenty-somethings wanting to be part of something bigger. But he'd been served by the same four admins since he took over Team Rocket, and while he was constantly refreshing his lower workforce, ultimately he and his admins were getting a little long in the tooth. It'd been twenty years since the first run-in with that kid—

"He's remained the Champion of Kanto ever since then, to be fair," Mewtwo murmured, at this point having successfully made physical contact with Persian.

—and he'd been running himself ragged trying to make Team Rocket what Mama Boss wanted it to be. But the initial failure of Rainbow Rocket planted another seed in his brain: what happened to the other team leaders in _this_ world?

"Maxie and Archie, I believe, settled their differences and stopped denying the fact that neither of them are knowledgeable ecologists." Mewtwo scratched Persian behind the ears. "Cyrus was believed to be dead for a while but eventually they found him; I think he's in a psychiatric hospital, though you'd have to fact-check that. Ghetsis is in an institute for the criminally insane somewhere in Unova. It's unknown whether Lysandre is alive or dead, since no body was ever recovered from his headquarters…and I believe the InterPol just kind of let Guzma go. Petty theft and vandalism are comparatively minor crimes, I suppose."

"Like hell I'd get Guzma to wear a suit and tie, though." Gio huffed, tapping a pen against his lips.

"Ohh, I see." Mewtwo laughed aloud, visibly startling Persian. "You couldn't get the winners to behave as a cohesive team, so you're going after the losers! Seeking them out at their weakest…quite the noble strategy."

"The version of Cyrus I had to deal with just now believed himself to be God." Gio glared at Mewtwo. "As far as I know, the _real_ Cyrus is an engineer, which I could definitely use."

"Assuming he's made any headway at whatever hospital he's being held at." Mewtwo stood up and stretched its legs, towering over Gio. "And assuming he'd be willing to help a fool like you with something he himself has already failed at."

"Quite the failure fixation you've got there." Gio returned to his notes.

"As if you don't."

Before Gio could go off again, there was a knock at his cabin door. He shot Mewtwo a look before getting up to answer it; Archer stood in the doorway, looking markedly gloomy.

"We're approaching Hoenn, Boss." He half-assedly saluted to Gio. "Did you want to stop for anything, or fly through the evening to arrive in Kanto by sunrise? We're good on fuel, so we don't need to stop if you don't want to."

Gio looked back into his cabin. Mewtwo had retreated again into the shadows, leaving Persian staring intensely at the back corner of the room. He definitely had more room than his admins, but ultimately the jet's cabin was like a closet compared to how he was used to living.

"Let's stop." Gio sighed. "I want to sleep in a real bed."

Hoenn was a marginally chillier than Alola, though still quite warm compared to Kanto. The jet landed just outside of Lavaridge, and everyone donned their respective disguises to enter the city and book the Presidential Suite at a hotel with access to the hot springs. Mewtwo had ever-so-graciously agreed to remain in its ball for the evening; once they were on the jet again, it could come back out and continue to demean Gio and the admins. Gio was quick to drop his belongings at the room and dash off to the springs, but was crushed to find they no longer served more than two alcoholic beverages per customer while in the water.

"Do I look like a man who can't handle a few drinks?" Gio had exasperatedly asked the bartender, slumping back into the water with a beer. He tugged the sleeve of his wetsuit shirt down to make sure his tattoos were covered.

"It's a safety thing." She'd replied flatly. "You don't notice your sweating since you're in the water, and when you're dehydrated the alcohol is more potent, and alcohol _also_ makes you dehydrated…"

"Wasn't like this last year." He took a sip of the beer and nearly gagged; it tasted like someone had chewed up a dandelion and spat it into his mouth.

"We had an incident this past winter." The bartender paused. "I'm not sure if I'm allowed to say more than that. Anyways if that one's too hoppy for you, let me know. I can swap it out for something else and it won't count as one of your drinks."

Gio dejectedly accepted her offer and had a mudslide instead, then being joined by the rest of his admins, as well as the pilot and the handful of grunts he'd brought with him to Alola.

"What's our plan of action, going forward?" Petrel asked. Gio and his admins had claimed a corner of the pool farthest from the bar, where they could discuss their situation in relative privacy.

"Once we're back in Kanto, I think I'm gonna look into hiring or promoting some new admins." When the four exchanged nervous glances, he held up a hand. "Relax, nobody's getting the axe. I just think we need some fresh brains, you feel?"

"Got any particular promotions in mind, Boss?" Ariana took a sip of her own drink, which looked a lot harder than Gio's. "There's a few grunts I've worked with who I wouldn't mind recommending."

"Whoever you guys wanna recommend, I'll look into. The only lead I got is an outside hire." Gio put his mudslide down on the edge of the pool and slowly sank to his neck in the water. "For right this minute I wanna unwind. We'll worry about it when we're back in Kanto. Figure you guys can enjoy yourselves while you're here, 'cause we got a helluva lotta work to do back home."

Proton and Petrel were more than happy to comply, and they promptly got to goofing off for the remainder of the evening. Archer and Ariana, on the other hand, proceeded to bore Gio to death and back with a needlessly in-depth discussion on how this newfangled phone pokémon thing was ridiculous because you can just catch pokémon in real life, why would you bother with virtual ones you can't even do anything with? The objectives were an insult to the established gym system, and boy howdy do they suddenly seem to love gang activity as long as it's led by pretty young faces, right? Gio gradually inched away from them while they ranted at each other until he was alone with his drink in a more solitary corner of the pool.

He stayed in the water as long as the life guards would let him, long after the grunts and admins had left to sleep. The life guards eventually kicked him out of the pool around 2 AM, at which point he himself made a hasty retreat to his room. The springs had been relaxing, but the hot water had done little to ease the bitter taste of failure. If nothing else, being warm would help him fall asleep a little faster, even with the tall puce figure watching him from the corner.

At the crack of dawn, the Rockets checked out of the hotel and boarded the jet to continue back to Kanto. Finally back in Viridian City, they returned to their new headquarters where Gio could continue to work. He thought about what Mewtwo had said on the plane regarding the other team leaders; Ghetsis or Cyrus would probably be the best options. Mewtwo made a valid point of neither Maxie nor Archie really being reliable scientists, and until he could find whether or not Lysandre had been killed by his little death ray, that option was out the window as well. He pulled out his laptop and typed "Cyrus Shawlburg" into Google, which pulled up what he was looking for despite the horrific misspelling of Cyrus's surname.

The only news videos and articles he could find were eight or nine years old, the older ones proclaiming him dead at Spear Pillar, and the slightly newer ones detailing his discovery and trial. Admittedly, Gio hadn't been keeping up with the news when Team Galactic was at its largest; he was just glad that the InterPol were after someone else.

The deeper he dug, the stranger things got; there was a nurse on his team who leaked his medical information to the public, and then went and committed further malpractice by denying him pain medications. At first Gio wasn't sure how bad that really could have been, but among the leaked information was a particularly awful photo of Cyrus's poorly-healed skin grafts, which was more than enough to make Gio forcefully close his laptop. Of course, upon realizing the discomfort it caused him, Mewtwo implored Gio to search further.

"If you want fresh brains, as you said, you have to put the work in for it." It giggled, standing behind Gio while he cringed at the description of Cyrus's injuries. "Fascinating: hand torn clean off, and they had to take his arm in two separate amputations. They tried so hard. Heheh."

Mewtwo fucked off somewhere into the headquarters when that didn't elicit a response. Fortunately, Gio got a break not terribly long thereafter; Ariana had been able to find out what facility he was being held at, and even that he was allowed to have visitors.

"Spectacular work!" Gio grinned, reviewing the email. Cyrus has been at Eterna General's long-term psychiatric ward since his trial about eight years ago. Apparently he'd been intended to get chucked into a higher-security facility, but they went with a nicer joint since he wasn't violent.

"I suppose from here you're going to go straight to Sinnoh and try to win over your little robot man, then?" Mewtwo, who'd come back when it found nobody else to harass, lounged on a small couch in the office. "As the next in line, am I in charge while you're gone?"

"First of all, Ariana's next in line for this shindig unless Silver has a sudden change of heart." Gio printed out what information he'd be taking home to review. "Second of all…there's plenty of work to be done here before I go. Not riskin' failure on this one. I just got back, I ain't about to hop back into a plane for another six hours just for this toothbrush-lookin' motherfucker to say he doesn't want in on this Rocket action."

"What could you possibly say that would convince him? Be honest with yourself." Mewtwo giggled. "'Welcome to my tryhard New York yakuza gang, I have lost to every child I've battled in the past twenty years, please be my sidekick!'"

"Seems like a good enough deal to me, to get out of an institution." Gio completely ignored Mewtwo's remark. "But I want this place to be runnin' _right_ when he gets here. He's gonna need a lab, and probably an apartment…"

"Aww, how considerate." For once, Mewtwo didn't sound sarcastic, moreso just wildly disinterested.

"I'll have Proton get right on the lab, and there's already an open apartment on the fourteenth floor. Archer can make that place look nice…don't _you_ have anything productive to do?" Gio turned to look at Mewtwo, who was limply sprawled across the couch.

"What, oh great master, could I ever do for you?" Mewtwo deadpanned.

"Fix your damn attitude to start." Gio stuffed the papers into a folder, and stood up to leave. "And hey, maybe you could put that God-like power to use and help some of these new grunts train, huh? Ever think of that?"

"If they lose, can I kill them?"

"I'm gonna say no."

Of course, Proton went absolutely ham building the lab; Gio didn't understand a lick of what he said about it, but apparently it was everything an engineer could possibly dream of and more.

"You want him to get back into that inter-dimensional research, Boss? I got you covered!" The lab looked nice but Gio still had no idea what any of it was. "State-of-the-art equipment here, no engineer in his right mind would be able to leave this alone! I did everything I could to match what he'd been doing back in Team Galactic but with all-fresh equipment standards, even managed to snag a couple of original pieces from his lab, from when it got dismantled. It'll feel just like home!"

"Cool!" Gio feigned understanding. "How much did this put us in the hole?"

"Oh, almost nothing." Proton proudly put his hands on his hips. "We stole most of it!"

"Atta boy!" Gio slapped Proton's back, grinning. "How's Archer comin' along with the apartment?"

As if on queue, Archer swung the door open, singing his own praises about how nice of a living space he'd made of the barren apartment. He led Gio to the fourteenth floor to show Bossman around the place; Gio was honestly impressed with now nice it looked. It had the sort of classy, minimalistic look that a guy who really wanted to be a robot would love.

"The sleek minimalism is _so_ in right now." Archer hummed. "If the lab is as good as Proton says it is, I think your guy will be pretty sold on coming over."

"Excellent!" Gio clasped his hands together, having marginally more understanding about interior design than about engineering. "Lookin' good. Pretty spacious, too."

"Glad you're pleased~" Archer grinned charmingly. "Anything else you figure I should add before we finish up? All that's left is to paint the rest of the trim."

"Nah, nah, looks good. I'm gonna be gone less than a week; do what you gotta do to get done by then." Gio looked behind himself into the hall to make sure they hadn't been followed before inquiring, "Mewtwo been leaving you alone?"

"I mean…yeah. I almost never see it, actually." Archer looked confused. "Has it been bothering you?"

"Don't sweat it. I'm not scared of it going off while I'm gone, but…you know. It's not the friendliest thing in the building."

"That's saying something." Archer chuckled. As he and Gio parted ways back to their respective offices, he added, "We'll hold down the fort. Safe travels!"

—

Cyrus was awoken, as usual, at 8AM by a nurse who'd come in to take his vitals. Karen had been one of the few nursing staff who was there when Cyrus was hospitalized who still hadn't left, so seeing her a few times a week was sort of nice.

"Do you want to go to the morning meeting today?" She asked, sliding the blood pressure cuff off his arm.

"Yeah." Cyrus hefted himself upright and swung his legs over the edge of his bed. Karen helped him maintain his balance while he got into his wheelchair, and he followed her out of his room into the same hallway he'd spent the past eight years of his life.

Morning meeting was in the common room, where the other patients he was grouped with would eat and, if they were feeling social, spend most of their day. The meeting mostly consisted of whatever social worker was stationed there for the month asking each patient how they slept and what their goals for the day was. Cyrus slept fine, thanks, and his goal would be (as it had been recently) to spend more time in the common room and less time isolated in his bedroom. Helen slept better than usual, and she'd be having physical therapy today so her goal was to not yell at her physical therapist. Cyrus wished her sincerest of luck. Emerson said he hardly slept and that his goal was to fall asleep at a more reasonable hour tonight. Last in the circle (most of the patients preferred to sleep until 9 or 10) was Tiff, who said she slept alright and was going to spend her time in the courtyard jogging to try to get back in shape.

They quietly ate breakfast as the rest of the patients began to slink in. For most of them, Cyrus knew their names, and maybe why they ended up here, but little else. In general they were discouraged from asking "what're you in for?" as an opening question, but it hadn't stopped anyone Cyrus's first week. Apparently everyone there then had been in the facility for well over a year, and they had a shaky grasp at best on the world outside. Regardless, the other patients were all eventually willing to share why they'd ended up in here.

Helen, in a manic episode, nearly killed her young son. She hasn't seen him since she was institutionalized; now he was fifteen, and she had no idea where he was. Emerson had been there the longest; about two years before Cyrus was born, Emerson believed demons in his head would kill him and torture his family if he didn't complete their hit list. His condition had only let up slightly with anti-psychotics; he still heard and saw them, but even though he was able to reliably discern reality from hallucination, it looked like they weren't planning on letting him go any time soon. Tiff, who had only been there a month, was who Cyrus felt the worst for, primarily because she really didn't belong there. Tiff had killed her abusive husband in self-defense while he was actively attacking her. Sadly, he'd spent the last four years of her life isolating her from her family and gaslighting her into thinking she was the crazy one in the relationship. It was enough to save her from a first-degree murder charge, but after a certain point even she believed what he'd said, and here she was.

The three of them were the closest thing Cyrus had to a friend group in here. Although the environment was calm and, in general, there were few incidents, the constantly-changing group of patients made Cyrus even now hesitant to really befriend people. Even Emerson, though he'd been hospitalized since before Cyrus was born, had been transferred in and out, to different facilities, pretty frequently over the course of his stay.

"I wouldn't mind a change of view myself." Cyrus mumbled drowsily. Recently, there'd been a caffeine ban in the mental health wing of the hospital, out of potential medication interactions.

Emerson mumbled something that Cyrus didn't catch, he himself probably not much more awake. Tiff, who'd gone to her bedroom after breakfast, returned to the common room and sat between them. She slipped something into Cyrus's palm; he checked to make sure there wasn't a nurse in the room, and then looked at the object: a teabag, the tag labeled "Breakfast Tea."

"I asked for a bunch after coffee got pulled from the menu, but before they pulled black tea." She snickered as she snuck one to Emerson as well. "I have like twenty in my room. Where's Helen?"

"She's already off for PT." Emerson quietly got up and grabbed his empty mug. "You're a life-saver."

"I'll save her one for lunch, then." Tiff settled into the couch as Emerson went off to fill his mug with hot water. "Anything good on?"

"You tell me." Cyrus half-heartedly motioned towards the TV, the remote to which was hidden by the nurses, playing the local weather on loop.

"They had it on cartoons last night. Guess they didn't want me glued to the set again." Emerson laughed weakly, returning with a mug of tea. "Hell if I gleaned anything from it, I was just thrilled so see something other than a watered-down version of the news."

"No wonder you barely slept." Tiff stretched her legs. Cyrus scooted his chair closer to the table, where he'd accumulated some computer paper and ballpoint pens to draw with. "Any grand plans for the day?"

Cyrus shrugged. Tiff and Emerson continued to make small talk while Cyrus doodled. Around two hours before lunch, Karen brought Cyrus to his own physical therapy appointment, where unlike Helen he made no attempt to be nice to the therapist.

"Your hatred fuels me." The therapist deadpanned, running the electrodes attached to Cyrus's legs again. He'd gained some motor control back in his legs, enough to stand and sometimes take a few steps, but not really enough to not rely on the wheelchair. He'd stopped feeling like it was worth it when his progress towards walking unsupported plateaued about a year into his stay.

Cyrus weakly kicked at the therapist, knowing he may as well have just breathed at him a little more aggressively. The therapist moved him over to an area with gymnastic mats, where she and a nurse supported Cyrus on either side to try to help him walk. As would happen every now and then, once Cyrus was up, he was able to stand unassisted, but he promptly ate shit when he tried to take a step. The current uncrossable hurdle was that Cyrus would be unable to use a walker due to only having one arm; he'd lost it entirely, even including parts of his clavicle, so there wasn't a very supportive external anchor for a weight-bearing prosthetic. Ultimately this meant that Cyrus's only path to walking would be to go straight from a wheelchair to a cane, and the therapists were largely unwilling to admit that maybe their efforts were being wasted on a man who hated using a wheelchair a whole lot less than continually falling over trying to overexert himself.

Cyrus's knees and nose were bruised when he returned for lunch. By that time Helen was back, and was just as delighted as Cyrus and Emerson had been to receive a little pick-me-up from Tiff. Lunch was otherwise uneventful. At Emerson's insistence, Karen decided to put the cartoons back on; there was something kind of wholesome about someone in his seventies being that excited to watch a show that was targeted more towards elementary students. Regardless, his point of it being something other than the damn weather was enough to leave most of the patients glued to the television for the majority of the afternoon. Cyrus even elected out of going to group therapy just to watch something different.

Visitor hours rolled around, and Cyrus remained by the TV. Grandpa Finn had already visited this week, so he wasn't expecting to see anyone. Tiff was visited by her sister, who'd only that day been able to track her down, and they had a teary-eyed reunion which Cyrus tried to not pay any attention to. When Karen came in and approached him, he figured she was going to tell Emerson his son was there, but instead she lightly tapped on the handle of Cyrus's wheelchair to get his attention.

"Do you know anyone named Vincenzo Romano?" She asked, showing him a photocopy of a driver's license. "He's here to visit you, and said he knew you in college."

Cyrus paused. At this point, he barely remembered anyone from college other than the professor who recommended him to a counselor for the nail biting. The name didn't ring a bell, but the odds are with no name would. What would an old classmate want to talk to him about?

"Uhh, sure." Cyrus ran his hand over the armrest of his chair, and Karen brought him back to his room. Waiting there was a tall man with parted hair in a button-up shirt and pinstripe slacks, who looked up from his phone to grin. _He's way too old to have gone to college with me,_ Cyrus thought, _maybe he was a TA? Why is he wearing sunglasses?_ Karen left the door open as she walked back to the common room, and the man closed it most of the way before turning to Cyrus.

"Hey there, Toothpaste. Good to see you."

"I think you have the wrong man." Cyrus raised an eyebrow at him, now very confident that he didn't know this man. "What did you just call me?"

"No, no, you're definitely the guy I'm looking for." The man grinned again, and pulled down the collar of his shirt. Irezumi tattoos. Most noticeably, a circled R on the right side of his chest. A Rocket.

Cyrus less-than-subtly gripped the armrest of his chair and leaned back in shock; the man laughed, and re did the top button of his shirt.

"Relax, guy. I ain't gonna do nothin' to you." He reached up and, in one motion, took his sunglasses off and smoothed the part out of his hair to reveal a steep widow's peak.

This wasn't just some random Rocket. This was the most-wanted criminal on the planet.

Giovanni.

"Now, hear me out, I know what you're thinking!" Giovanni gently kicked the door the rest of the way closed, apparently taking delight in Cyrus's shock. "I hear you're approximately ready for release, is that right?"

"W-well…I would be if I, uh, had a way to live outside the hospital." Cyrus stammered. "Um, b-but I'd basically need a live-in caregiver and rides to and from so many appointments that—"

"What if I told you I could get you all that?" Giovanni leaned with one shoulder on the wall. "I got a proposition for ya. We got an open lab and an apartment that I can make accessible. I can get you situated with whatever doctors and caregivers you need. You'd get to get out of this hospital, out of Sinnoh; all expenses paid."

"…You want me to work for you…?"

"Ayy, you're still sharp!" Giovanni cackled. "I'm interested in inter-dimensional travel, and from what I've read, you've got some experience with that, to say the absolute least."

Cyrus said nothing, just dramatically motioned at the scars on his face and empty sleeve his right arm would be occupying if it were there.

"I get it, I get it, but I'm not here trying to make whole new worlds or anything. Hell, I don't even really wanna visit other places; I'm looking to bring stuff to me, know what I'm saying?"

"I'm going to be honest, the news station they let us watch is pretty watered down, but I think something like that went very poorly in Alola recently." Cyrus replied. Giovanni seemed taken aback by the statement, but he quickly righted himself.

"Yeah, it did, because nobody had an engineer who's _done_ shit like this before!" He checked over his shoulder to make sure none of the nurses were eavesdropping. "I'm gonna be real with you, Cyrus. You'd be a _boon_ to the team. What can I offer you that would convince you to come to Kanto?"

Cyrus paused. What the hell was Giovanni planning? Though, more relevantly…what did Cyrus want at this point? He was already offering a lab, a place to live, technically everything he'd need to get by…but what else could Cyrus get away with asking for?

"Other than my engineering capabilities, what are you getting out of this?" Cyrus asked. "There's plenty of engineers, especially now that Ultrabeasts are more common knowledge among the scientific community. Why me?"

"First-hand experience, my guy! And, let's be honest, I think we're pretty like-minded."

"Do you expect me to go be an intern to your existing team of researchers?" Cyrus cringed a little bit.

"Oh, no, not at all. You'll basically be an admin; the only person you'd be getting orders from is me." Giovanni flashed a smile. "Whatever you need. Probably been a while since you've had access to internet, right? I can get you a nice PC. Basically anything you'd want, I can get you."

"If I say yes now, and then later on think of something I want or need, is that offer still on the table?"

"Within reason, I think." Gio paused, and checked the door again. "If you, like, need someone killed, that's a now-or-never sort of deal—"

"No, Arceus, what?" Cyrus shook his head. "I'm talking about furnishings or equipment or whatever."

"Oh, yeah, that's fine." Giovanni breathed a sigh of relief. "You have a need, you let me know. If you join Team Rocket, it's yours. Sound good?"

Cyrus paused again. He'd been talking to Giovanni for less than five minutes. Was that really enough time to decide whether or not he'd sign his life away?

"What if, later down the line, I decide I want out? Then what?"

"Then there's a, uh, an informal nondisclosure agreement, if you will." Giovanni shrugged. "We've had people leave without consequence. 'Long as you don't snitch, do you."

"…I'm in."

It took about a week for paperwork to go through for Cyrus's discharge. The nursing staff was pretty suspicious at first; if you haven't visited him once all these years, why was he so quick to move in with you? Cyrus and Gio agreed upon a very simple backstory to explain it; "Vinny" was a business TA at Cyrus's college, and they'd gotten along well enough that when Vinny finally tracked him down, he was able to make accommodations for Cyrus to move to Kanto. Piece of cake.

There was a nice clandestine little Rocket location in Jubilife City where Cyrus and Giovanni would be spending the next couple of days before heading off to Kanto. Cyrus had mumbled something about being more suspicious of Veilstone's game corner than any place in Jubilife, but Gio took it as a compliment on how well-hidden the branch was. Here, Gio was able to introduce him to how the Rocket way of life works; Cyrus seemed off-put by how obedient the grunts were for some reason, making Gio repeatedly assure him that they were here of their own free will and being paid living wages.

"Goddamn, Toothpaste, I'm a businessman, not a slave driver." Gio led Cyrus to the temporary office he'd been working out of while waiting for Cyrus's discharge to go through. "It doesn't benefit the business if my employees need second jobs."

"Okay, I get it, just…" Cyrus looked over his shoulder as a grunt sprinted past carrying a large crate.

"Anyways, we got like another couple of days before things are set back up well enough for your apartment to be ready." Gio took a boxed laptop from a crate in the room and put it on one of the two desks. "That's for you, til we get to Kanto and Petrel can build you a nice one…apparently." He sat down at his own desk and took his phone out. "Speaking of, let me check on that for you."

Cyrus cautiously moved forward and opened the laptop box while Gio took a minute to remember how to do a video call. Archer eventually figured out Gio was trying to contact him and initiated the video call himself.

"Archer! How's the corrections on the apartment coming along?" Gio asked, trying to get the pop socket on his phone to act like a stand, but eventually giving up and just holding the phone like a normal person.

"Uhh, we've got mostly just furniture alterations to do." Archer was looking rather disheveled; he must have been in the middle of working on something. "We've got chair lifts installed in all of the staircases, we already swapped out the pneumatic standing desk for a U-shaped one that'll have plenty of room for his chair…" Archer yawned, which made Cyrus realize it was like 3AM in Kanto. Oops. "Petrel's got the PC pretty much done and put together. Proton's already made most of the stuff in the lab compatible with left-hand-only controllers, but we're nearly done."

"Good work, my guy. How's the fort?"

"Everything's in order. So far nothing has gone spectacularly wrong…" Archer thought for a moment. "I definitely watched Mewtwo try to eat coffee grinds."

"Haha, idiot." Gio chuckled. Persian climbed out of its bed in the corner of the office to hop into Gio's lap. "Anything else?"

"Uhh…not that I can think of." Archer yawned again. "Sorry, Boss, it's just like an unholy hour here…"

"Don't worry about it. Anyhow, we'll be there in three days. Get some rest."

"You too." Archer's face fell into a now-visible pillow, muffling his final statement: "Profit and Glory and all that."

When Gio looked up from his phone, Cyrus was busily setting up his laptop. Persian left Gio's lap to go check out the newcomer. Cyrus slowly offered his hand for Persian to sniff, and it stretched lazily next to him as he returned to his laptop.

"Need the WiFi password?" Gio asked, pulling his own computer out.

"No, I figured it out." Cyrus mumbled. Gio paused.

"…Aaaand how did you do that?"

"I mean, Rocket1234 isn't the strongest password, to be fair." Cyrus glanced up at Gio. "It was a guess. So is Vincenzo Romano your real name, or—"

"Woah woah, where'd you hear _that_?!" Gio cut him off, totally bewildered.

"They took a photocopy of your ID at the hospital." Cyrus replied, somewhat taken aback.

"What, and they just pin those to a wall in the ward?" Gio flopped back into his seat. "That's personal information!"

"The only person who visited me for the entire time I was there was my grandfather." Cyrus shrugged. "The nurse wanted to see if I actually knew you."

"…Why'd you say you did?" Gio asked. Cyrus stopped typing for a second.

"There's a lot of things I don't remember very well." He resumed the laptop setup. "Brain fog is one of my worst TBI symptoms. For every day I can easily guess someone's WiFi password, there's a day I can't remember what a…a, um…oh." Cyrus stopped typing and put his face in his hand. "Bad example. I actually can't remember the word. But you get what I mean."

"Colander." Gio guessed. Judging by Cyrus's utterly perplexed reaction, he decided that was not the word Cyrus was trying to think of.

"No, it's a brass…thing. It's not important." Cyrus jumped slightly when Persian climbed over the armrest of his chair and into his lap. "And I'm going to take it that you don't want me calling you Vinny, then?"

"Gio's fine, man." Gio stared at his laptop, himself having forgotten what he was going to do on it.

"And, if you don't mind my asking…what's this about Mewtwo?" Cyrus asked innocently enough. Gio let his head drop to his desk, and when he lifted it Cyrus was staring at him, eyes wide with what Gio assumed to be concern.

"Well…do you want the short version or the long version?" Gio groaned.

"Medium."

"Alright." Gio sighed melodramatically; Persian curled up and started dozing off in Cyrus's lap. "My mom founded Team Rocket when I was a kid, and she'd been interested in finding Mew for just, like, ages. Well, when I turned thirty and she handed the business to me, she wanted me to find Mew and do somethin'…well, Rocket-like. She wanted the perfect weapon pokémon, and I thought, hey, that ain't a bad idea. So I manage to track down Mew, and I had the first set of scientists I was in charge of make alterations to its DNA and try to make a viable 'clone' offa it."

"Fascinating." Cyrus said flatly. Gio could not, for the life of him, tell if that was sarcastic.

"Well, uh…it worked, technically. Like we made this pokémon, and I less-than-creatively called it Mewtwo." Gio scratched his chin, the sound exemplified by stubble. "But we couldn't really…control it. At all. So even though the thing was alive and powerful, from the perspective of something we could use, the experiment was a failure. We sealed it off in a cave where it wouldn't go hunting any of us down.

"So, you know, twenty years pass, nothin' good comes out of it. Recently, though I got interested in these Ultraspace Wormholes, and I'd set up a little experiment to see if they were a viable way of better completing my initial goal…and I'd need Mewtwo for it. So I kinda…toughed it out, you know, got ahold of a Master Ball, and got it under control. Sort of. It's, uh, not pleased with its predicament to say the absolute least, but seems like the only thing it's hellbent on destroying is my motivation. So that's that, really." When Cyrus raised an eyebrow at him, Gio clarified: "I don't know what those scientists did to that Mew's DNA, but this thing can talk and it's an asshole."

"Wow. How's that working out for you?"

"Poorly." Gio grumbled. "You got any pokémon?"

"I used to." Cyrus struggled somewhat to untangle the laptop's power cord. "I released them when I was hospitalized. Figured it'd be better for them."

"Hard decision." Gio said quietly, eyeing Persian. He couldn't bear the thought of saying goodbye to that cat, let alone as a willing choice.

"Yeah."

And then it was quiet. Gio was made wildly uncomfortable by the sudden drop in conversation, but when he looked up from his laptop he realized Cyrus had put on headphones. Where did he even get those? They must have come with the laptop. Gio discreetly called Persian back over to him by clicking his tongue, and it somewhat reluctantly left Cyrus's lap to sit on Giovanni's. He felt some sort of pang in his heart when Persian rested its head on his forearm; Cyrus had to miss his pokémon, right?

It was something that was on his mind over the next three days, as Cyrus spent most of his time in front of his laptop, already busily plotting out what he wanted to do in Kanto. Persian had made a habit of sleeping sprawled across Gio's face at night, which had left him still pulling cat hair out of his mouth the morning that the jet was ready to leave to take him and Cyrus back to Viridian City. The announcement from the pilot that there was a bird preventing the plane from taking off was just icing on the jetlag cake. At least until Cyrus nearly fell out of his chair trying to reopen the plane's door in a panic, having caught sight of the specific bird in question. Now he was sat in Gio's cabin, tightly clutching a squabbling mess of black feathers, face buried in the bird's wings. Cyrus hoarsely explained himself while it jabbed at his wheelchair with its beak; this was his Honchkrow, his pet from childhood, who with his other pokémon he'd released upon hospitalization. It had waited for him.

A little misty-eyed himself from the reunion, Gio exhaustedly flopped onto his bed as he felt the plane take off. He'd just woken up, but honestly it's next to impossible to avoid napping on a plane ride if you can; as he started dozing off, he heard one last thing from Cyrus before falling asleep.

"Oh! Saxophone, that's the word I was looking for."


	3. Bad Company

Good God, it was good to be home. Sinnoh was so damn cold Gio had been sleeping with multiple pairs of socks on, but when the jet finally touched down he was itching to get the doors open and feel the marginally warmer air. First, however, he'd need to worry about disguises, since they'd landed at a commercial airport. Gio parted his hair and put his sunglasses back on, and after locating Cyrus, swept his hair back and put a pair of wireframe glasses on him.

"I don't think this is going to fool anyone." Cyrus had muttered, looking in the mirror. Honchkrow pecked at the glasses. "If Martin actually went and posted pictures of my injuries, anyone familiar with the story will recognize the scars."

"You say that, but you'd be surprised what glasses and a different hairstyle will do for you." Gio called Persian back into its pokéball. "Just wait and see. So till we get to the headquarters, I am gonna actually have you call me Vinny; do you have any sort of pseudonym you use?"

"I mean if Giovanni is just your middle name, I guess I could go by Abner." Cyrus shrugged, petting the bird in his lap. The pilot opened the door of the plane and the two of them went down the enclosed ramp into the airport. The place was absolutely packed; a lot of Kanto's more well-off retirees were what Gio called "snowbirds" that would spend the summer in Kanto or Sinnoh, and then go to Hoenn or Alola for the winter. As the cooler weather set in, lots of people were off to vacation elsewhere.

As Gio had predicted, their half-assed disguises were more than effective at making the two men look like innocent enough passersby that nobody gave them a second look. Cyrus still seemed a little stiff, but Honchkrow had settled right down and appeared to be asleep in his lap. Gio made a few offers to him while they were there; coffee? Food? Wanna go see the Magikarp pond on the third floor? He was mostly just trying to fill the silence at this point, since it had been so long since he'd had to deal with someone so damn quiet—

"Dad!?"

Gio swiveled around, immediately catching the startled face of a red-haired young man just coming out of security.

"H-hey, Silver!" Gio waved weakly; Silver looked back and forth across the terminals and then back behind him before walking over.

"What are you doing here?" Silver hissed, repeatedly looking over his shoulder back to security. Finally, he noticed Cyrus, who was still staring straight ahead with the sleeping Honchkrow in his lap. "…And who's that?"

"Weellll, this is Abner," Gio patted Cyrus's shoulder, making him jump, "And we just came back from Sinnoh to, uh, pick him up. What are you back in Kanto for?"

"Uhh, I'm actually on my way back to Alola, because—"

Silver abruptly stopped talking, and Gio with him, as another familiar face approached from security. It'd been ages since Gio had seen him, but he'd recognize the cap and the pissed-off eyebrows anywhere.

"Daaad…this is Red, the reigning champion of Kanto." Silver cautiously motioned between his father and his friend. "Red, uh, this is my dad."

Red smiled and saluted. Apparently the disguise was good enough to fool him, or perhaps it had just been that long since he'd seen Giovanni that he didn't recognize him from twenty years of aging.

"Hi there, Red!" Gio tried to disguise his voice as he stuck his hand out to shake Red's. The champion reciprocated, and then slowly signed something to Silver.

"What? W-well, he's usually out on business, so there isn't, uh, a lot of time." Silver stuttered. He clarified for Gio, "Red wanted to know why I hadn't told him you live in Kanto. Uhh, I'm tutoring Red in sign language. And Red, this is, uh…Abner?" He raised an eyebrow at Gio, and Cyrus awkwardly waved.

"Yes. Hi." Cyrus deadpanned. Red saluted back, somewhat hesitatingly signed something else, and grinned.

"Red said we're headed to Alola to go participate in the Battle Tree. Blue's already there, so he wanted in on it as well." Silver glanced over to their terminal. "Um, actually, Red, we don't have a ton of time before the plane leaves. We should probably get going."

Red nodded in agreement, waved goodbye, and started off towards the terminal without Silver.

"W-wait for me, man!" Silver started off after him, but turned around to Gio to say one last thing: "Please stay out of trouble."

"Come on, kiddo, you know that ain't my style." Gio grinned. Silver rolled his eyes dramatically before jogging off to catch up with Red. Once they were out of earshot, Gio let his face fall into one hand as he continued towards the front doors of the airport.

"…Red looked older than I thought he would." Cyrus said quietly.

"Yeah, well, he's gotta be thirty something by now." Gio grumbled. His phone vibrated in his pocket; when he pulled it out to check, he had a text from Silver.

Silver | 1:15pm

PLEASE tell me that was not Cyrus Solberg.

Gio took a second to respond, pushing Cyrus's wheelchair forward with his elbows.

Gio | 1:17

That Was Not Cyrus Solberg. :)

Silver | 1:17

I'm going to kill you

Gio | 1:19

You Keep Saying That And Yet Here I Am, Not Dead? So?

"Having fun back there?" Cyrus sighed. Something about the way he said it made Gio feel a little weird.

"Don't worry about it." Gio chuckled absentmindedly.

"I didn't know you had a son." Cyrus said. "Is he, uh, part of this as well?"

"Well…no. Not at all, actually." Gio paused; even all these years later, it was still a sore spot. "He's got no interest in taking over when I retire. Honestly our relationship had been a little, uh, strained over it until fairly recently."

"Oh." Cyrus fiddled with the glasses, seemingly remembering something. "When we get to the headquarters, I need to call my grandfather and let him know we landed safe."

"Does…how much did you tell him?" Gio asked slowly.

"Same thing we told the nurses, that I got discharged and that I'm going to Kanto to live with a college TA who could help me." Cyrus shrugged. "I couldn't live with him since he's getting to the age where he's reliant on a walker and wouldn't be able to afford a caretaker with what he's getting for social security, at least not until he needs one himself."

"How old's your grandad, Toothpaste?"

"He's…" Cyrus paused, scratching the back of his head. "Uh…he was sixty-five when I was sixteen…and I'm…twen—no, thirty…six? So he's eighty seven. But he's in good shape, apparently. How old is Silver?"

"Silver just turned twenty eight." As they approached the front doors, Gio hit the button on the wall with a wheelchair on it to open the doors. Cyrus paused for a very long couple of seconds, before turning around to look back at Gio.

"How old are you?"

"…How old do you think I am?" Gio asked.

"That's a loaded question." Cyrus stated.

"No, no it's not! Really, how old do you think I am?" Gio pushed the wheelchair into the parking lot, where an out-of-uniform grunt was waiting by a sleek black car to drive them back to the headquarters. She helped Cyrus into his seat before folding the chair and putting it in the trunk while Gio got in on his side.

"…if your son is almost thirty, I doubt you're younger than fifty." Cyrus said, looking out the window as the grunt started up the car. "I would have otherwise guessed mid-forties."

"I mean, close." Gio shrugged, which Honchkrow apparently took as a threat display action because it shrugged back at him in a rather aggressive manner. "I'm fifty three."

"Huh." Cyrus patted Honchkrow's head to try to get it to calm down, to no avail. The bird honked loudly at Gio, making the grunt driving jump a little. Cyrus responded to this by gently grabbing Honchkrow's beak in his hand, turning the bird's head to look it in the eyes, and saying, "Hey. Locate your chill."

Gio turned on the radio, and Cyrus clicked through the channels until he found one appropriately unbearable that made Gio want to tear his eardrums out.

"Why are they yelling at me?" Gio asked nobody in particular, now deeply regretting that he'd elected against taking his headphones out of his suitcase or knowing how to use the music app on his phone. Cyrus snorted, presumably amused by the fact that Gio was not enjoying the music choice. After the song ended, Gio managed to beat Cyrus to the punch on selecting a station, and found something a little easier on his brain. Naturally, however, Cyrus was now looking at the radio with an expression of mild disgust.

"What, never heard any jazz before?" Gio scoffed.

"It sounds like…late 80's softcore porn music." Cyrus shook his head and looked out the window, entirely missing Gio's flabbergasted reaction. Before the song even ended, the driver pulled up to the front of the new Rocket headquarters, cleverly disguised as a conglomerate building, where she quickly got out to unfold Cyrus's chair. Gio stood up and stretched his legs while the grunt helped Cyrus into his chair. Finally he was actually all the way home, and he could sleep in his own damn bed for a while.

First, however, there were a few things he'd need to take care of. Cyrus had already been fitted for a Rocket uniform (Archer had made alterations to the admin garb for Cyrus's particular aesthetic), and fortunately it was ready by the time they walked in…however, Cyrus's live-in nurse was not.

"Uhh, she said she'd be here at like seven tonight…" the grunt at the front desk scrambled through her files trying to offer more information. "She's already been briefed, she signed the nondisclosure agreement, but, um, she had an appointment. Or something." The grunt dropped a small stack of papers and nearly fell over trying to pick them up.

"I mean…I can probably put it on myself, it would just take a while." Cyrus thought for a moment. "It'd be fine if someone was outside the room I could yell to if I fall or get stuck or something."

"I can't really walk off without you til you meet the other admins. I can wait." Gio shrugged. "The bathrooms are over here."

Gio led Cyrus to the bathroom and handed him the uniform, which was neatly pressed and wrapped in plastic film. After about ten minutes of standing awkwardly outside the bathroom twiddling his thumbs, Gio finally heard something.

"Why the fuck is it a turtleneck? I can't get this thing on."

"Do you, uh, need a hand?" Gio called into the bathroom. Cyrus sighed.

"Yeah. It's only got one sleeve—why's it only got one sleeve?"

Gio slowly opened the door, which Cyrus hadn't locked. He'd gotten the pants and shoes on fine, but as he said, he was struggling to get the shirt on. Gio was somewhat taken aback by Cyrus's scars; he knew they were going to be there, obviously, but something about how extensively they covered him left Gio a little startled. The entirety of Cyrus's right shoulder was enveloped in scar tissue, leaving more of a dent than a stump in his right arm's place. Gio shook it off and took the sweater from Cyrus, helping him pull it over his head, while Honchkrow rather unhelpfully threw the vest onto the floor.

"Who designed this?" Cyrus grumbled, slowly snaking his arm through the sleeve.

"Uhh, Archer." Gio handed him the vest, which was easy enough to put on. "Looks sharp, though!"

"What if I end up getting a prosthetic?" Cryus motioned towards the right side of the shirt, which had no sleeve and instead was neatly stitched shut.

"Archer said he had more standard sweaters made as well." Gio shrugged as he and Cyrus left the bathroom. "I mean, take it up with him. He does all of the designing shit."

The elevator was a short walk away, and once they were in it slowly crawled up the floors. Quiet, generic piano music playing over the speakers kept the prolonged silence from being too awkward, barely enough so that Gio didn't feel the need to fill the void with empty chatter. The elevator opened up on floor 20, and he led Cyrus down the hall to his office.

"Cyrus, these are the standing Rocket executives." Gio introduced them as he closed the door behind Cyrus. "Left to right: Petrel, Proton, Archer, and Ariana."

"Order of helpfulness." Ariana hummed.

"Debatable at best." Petrel snorted.

"Guys. This is Cyrus." Gio patted the back of Cyrus's wheelchair. "Also his Honchkrow. As I've already informed you, he'll be our lead engineering executive as we move forward with our wormhole research; you guys wanna talk about yourselves for a sec for Toothpaste here?"

"I'm Petrel, as Bossman already said." Petrel stepped up to plate first. "Generally I get put on for training new hires, though this past week I got to take a nice little break from that to build your PC. Oh, you should see that thing, honestly I haven't gotten to build a computer in ages, but you could run the entire Adobe creative suite all at once and it wouldn't even get toasty—"

"Name's Proton." He tried to cut Petrel off, but he wouldn't shut up about the computer, so Proton just talked over him. "I guess I'm sort of the project manager. I see to it that everyone is working on whatever their skills are most useful at, and making sure they have the supplies to do so."

"Archer." Archer stood a little taller and smiled charmingly. "I'm the closest thing we have to PR here; I handle relations between other teams, and anything that will affect the way Team Rocket is perceived by the public, our allies, and our enemies. Including the design element," with a flourish he motioned towards the outfits of his comrades. "Hope you like yours."

"My name is Ariana. I'm, at this point, Vice President to Giovanni." Ariana shot Archer a look, which he didn't seem to notice. "I handle the general organization of the team, seeing to it that Bossman's orders are carried out in the most efficient manner possible. I handle the budgeting, and serve as interim leader when he's away."

"And, as you already know, I'm Giovanni, the boss." Gio moved to stand in front of Cyrus and grinned at him. "You wanna ask them anything, Toothpaste?"

"I've got one for you, actually." Cyrus said flatly.

"What's that?"

"Why do you keep calling me Toothpaste?"

The admins snickered behind him as Gio shrugged melodramatically.

"I dunno, you look like a toothbrush!" He shot a look at his admins. "I call Archer Sagittarius, man. Any serious questions?"

"Eh." Cyrus gave a disinterested shrug.

"In that case, let's continue the tour." Gio started to move towards the door but was interrupted by a beep in his pocket. When he stopped walking, staring dejectedly at his phone, Ariana took her queue to take over.

"We'll catch up with you later, Gio. We can handle the tour from here." She patted her boss on the shoulder as she walked past him, motioning for Cyrus and the other admins to follow her. "Cyrus, we're gonna show you your lab next, and then your apartment. I think you'll be pleased with both."

Gio waited a minute or two after the door closed behind them to leave, quietly making a beeline to the elevator. He pulled out his phone again as the elevator doors slid shut, feeling some very familiar wrist pain. The only open message was from his mother.

Mother | 2:20 pm

I expect an update in person.

.

It had been 23 years since Madame Boss had stepped down as Rocket Boss, but she never really left the place. The elevator took Gio to the 20th floor, the top, and he quietly walked to the door of her office, which he paused before knocking on.

"Come in." The voice from within said. Gio opened the door.

The face he was greeted with behind the desk was only vaguely familiar at this point; repeated cosmetic procedures performed in denial of old age made Gio's mother look more like a caricature than anyone he felt comfortable calling "mom." Gio stood in front of her desk rather than taking a seat; Madame Boss simply folded her hands on her desk and stared at him.

"Well?" She tapped her nails impatiently on the hardwood surface of the desk. "Where is he?"

"I left him with the executives to finish the tour, since you called me in here." Gio replied flatly. "They're showing him the lab."

"Aside from first-hand experience, what good is he going to be to making sure we use these Ultra Wormholes to their fullest potential?" She demanded over the clacking of her acrylics on the desk. "I want to know that this investment is more justified than some of your past ones."

"It's his entire specialization, and unlike most of our other options, he's stable and out of the eye of the InterPol." Gio said. "He—"

"In what way could this man possibly be out of the eye of the InterPol?" Madame Boss brought all of her nails down onto the desk at once, and then stood up out of her chair. "He was tried for an attempted crime against humanity, you fucking moron!"

"He was found not guilty and he did his time in the hospital." Gio kept his voice low. "The InterPol got what they wanted out of the situation. I have my own connections, Ma. They've got bigger fish to fry."

"This InterPol connection has failed you before." She narrowed her eyes. "What makes you think he's confident this time?"

"The fact that he was involved in Cyrus's case." Gio looked at the wall behind his mother rather than right at her. "All they wanted out of the case was to get him hospitalized to make breaking up the team easier. They got that. They don't care about him anymore."

"And I can't imagine they let him continue his studies in the hospital. When was the last time he actually got to work on something? How long has it been since he's put his skills to use?"

"I hired him understanding that he'd need time to get back into the swing of things—"

"Why? Why would you do that, when there's so many fucking engineers who don't need to start their employment with fucking vacation time?" Madame Boss motioned wildly towards the windows' view down upon Viridian City, and Gio flinched reflexively.

"'Cause I know the downtime is going to be worth it." Gio stated. Madame Boss let there be silence for a moment, as if expecting to explain himself more.

"How much longer are you gonna make me wait to see you actually do something good with this fucking business?" She started to raise her voice, which Gio had been fully expecting. "Fuck's sake, Vincenzo, you couldn't even make an heir to the place, at least not right. Am I even gonna be alive by the time you follow through with any of your shitty plans?"

Gio knew what he wanted to say to her. He wanted to say Silver thought him just as much a loser as she did. He wanted to say that the constant failures were wearing more on him than they could possibly be on her. He wanted to say that he knew, when she handed him Team Rocket, she still wanted all the power, just not the responsibility. He wanted to say, you want this thing back? Here's the fucking keys. Take them. I'm out.

Instead, Gio stood, dead-faced, staring past his mother while she continued her tirade on the subject of Giovanni's disappointment to her as a businessman and as a son. He may as well have been deaf to the sound of her shouting at that point; most attempted conversations with her ended this way. Recruitment rates were shit compared to her time (nevermind the fact that turnover rates were at an all-time low). He was making too nice with rival gangs rather than snuffing them out (nevermind that Gio was trying to reduce how much violence the public sees them commit). Gio, once again, thought about taking the keys to the building out of his pocket and tossing them on her desk. The only thing stopping him was that he knew what her reaction would be; was being a loser not enough, did he want to be a quitter, too? The thought of succeeding to spite her, to show her he's been a better boss for Team Rocket than she had ever been, was the only thing keeping the keys in his pocket rather than chucking them down and retiring for good, but even that was wearing thin. Madame Boss's rant slowed for a second, while her back was to Gio.

"You done?" He deadpanned. She whirled around to glare at him.

"Is that what you think this is? A fucking joke?" She hissed.

"I don't know about you, but I have things I need to be working on." Gio said flatly. His mother shook her head and looked back out the window.

"Then fucking go." She ordered. Gio obediently did an about-face and turned towards the door, which closed just late enough for him to hear his mother call him a worthless shithead. Once again he walked straight to the elevator, this time descending to the 7th floor where the lounge was located. The entire lounge area was dark and empty. Gio sank down onto a couch where a nearby TV was turned to a blank channel, closed his eyes, and pinched the bridge of his nose, turning his face to the back of the couch where he could hide until he had the energy to drive home.

.

Through the process of the tour, the admins had grown on Cyrus tremendously. His lab was everything he could have hoped for, and the apartment was more than accessible for him to be in his wheelchair full-time, to the point he wasn't sure he'd really need the caregiver. They'd invited him to play a tabletop RPG afterwords; apparently their last GM had crapped out on them, so they'd been rotating who runs each one-off dungeon crawl. Cyrus had been itching to play since he'd been hospitalized, partly because he kept remembering all the people who played in college that he didn't really spend time with. Fortunately, Archer had all of the books, so Cyrus spent two hours whipping something together and the next six enrapturing the executives with a roleplay-intensive story and some shaky attempts at combat. Around 10 they defeated a slapdash boss Cyrus had thrown at them, and after discussing the campaign and deciding to continue the game next week, they'd gone their separate ways for the evening. Cyrus wandered to the 7th floor lounge to look at what games he could play til he was tired enough to go to bed; Ariana said there was a Switch with Snipperclips already in it there, and Petrel had 3D-printed a one-handed joycon holder for him to use. The lounge was dark when he got there, so he flicked on one of the smaller lamps near the TV to see better, only to see a figure lying on the couch suddenly jump in surprise. When the figure slowly turned to Cyrus, eyes clamped shut from the light, he recognized Gio; what was he still doing here so late? Didn't he have a house?

"Sorry. I didn't realize you were sleeping." Cyrus mumbled. "It's like 10, I wasn't expecting anyone to be in here still."

"Oh, damn, is it really that late?" Gio rubbed his eyes as he slowly sat up. "I dozed off…huh. What are you still doing up?"

"Well…it's been over eight years since I've touched a video game." Cyrus found the docked Switch and turned it on; the TV, already turned to the HDMI channel, flickered to life. "Ariana said there was a game in here she thought I'd like. I can just bring it upstairs to my apartment if you want to be alone—"

"Nah, nah, it's fine." Gio stretched his legs while Cyrus located the controllers. "What did she tell you about?"

"Uh, it's a puzzle game called Snipperclips." Cyrus got the joycon holder situated and moved his chair to be in front of the TV. "She said it was two player if you want to give it a go."

"Ehh…I'll just watch, if that's alright." Gio mumbled. Cyrus shrugged. It took him a moment to figure out the controller, but once he'd selected the game it loaded up fine. Ariana's description had been pretty apt, basically only describing it as a puzzle game. Cyrus selected the first level, which taught him the controls. When he glanced to his side at Gio, he'd pulled a blanket down off the back of the couch and was mostly covered in it; only the top of his face and his feet were sticking out.

Cyrus played a few levels alone, needing to switch back and forth between the two characters in order to complete the puzzle. The next time he looked over, to again offer Gio the second controller, he'd fallen asleep. Cyrus turned the volume on the TV down to keep from disturbing him. The elevator's gentle ding sounded in the hallway, and after a moment Cyrus saw someone out of the corner of his eye enter the lounge and quietly approach the TV.

Only when it was within arm's reach did Cyrus realize it wasn't human.

Cyrus dropped the controller and nearly screamed, but the thing's eyes glowed cold violet and suddenly he couldn't make a sound. It put a finger up to its short snout, and released its psychic grip on the engineer. Cyrus remained silent, though still shaken, as it lowered its hand and looked down at Giovanni, asleep on the couch.

"Shame I didn't get here fast enough." It murmured. "I would have loved to bid him a welcome home." It turned its head to Cyrus, who had been inching away from it. "Oh, I'm sorry, Cyrus; did he not tell you about me? How rude of him."

"…Mewtwo." Cyrus breathed, still unsure whether or not he should attempt to flee. It flashed a toothy smile at him— why did it have fangs like that?—and chuckled.

"Aww, he remembered! I already know who you are, of course." Mewtwo strode away from the television, towards the pool table, where the balls began to float. "I had to make sure Giovanni did his research before he left, but I have been so terribly bored while he has been away."

"What…what do you normally do around here?" Cyrus asked after hesitating for a moment.

"Oh, that's funny. I don't do anything." Mewtwo arranged the floating balls into a triangle a few inches above the table. "I was expected to stay in my ball. Hah. They catch me after all these years and do nothing to try to keep me occupied. His Persian probably gets more entertainment than I do. So, naturally, I have to make my own." It paused, and looked back at Giovanni. "But of course it's late, and he's so old. No point in waking him now; nothing I say will get a reaction."

"Do…you want to play Snipperclips?"

The billiards balls all dropped onto the table with a heavy THUNK, enough to make Giovanni jump but not enough to totally awaken him. Mewtwo didn't respond.

"It was just an offer…" Cyrus mumbled, backing his chair towards the couch where he could wake Giovanni if he needed to.

"…What is it?" Mewtwo asked, its voice much lower.

"Uhh, just a puzzle game." Cyrus exited the level he was on, disconnected one of the joycons, and switched it to two-player mode. "Do you want to be pink or orange?"

"Is there a difference?" It came back towards the TV, looking more at the screen than at Cyrus.

"No, uh, just the way they look." Cyrus replied.

"…Pink."

Cyrus held out the joycon, which Mewtwo cautiously took before sitting on the floor. Cyrus re-loaded the first level, which as it turned out was actually much more entertaining in two-player mode. Attempts to keep their voices hushed were ultimately futile, and after a handful of levels, Giovanni woke up again, this time as startled to see Mewtwo as Cyrus had been.

"How the hell do you keep getting out!?" He groaned, putting his face in his hands.

"Silph Co. man probably gave you a crap ball." Mewtwo replied flatly. "One of us needs to be a gear. Let me make you pointy."

"It's almost midnight." Cyrus said, getting sort of sleepy himself. "Are you just going to spend the whole night in the lounge?"

"It wasn't my initial plan, but I'm sure as hell not awake enough to drive home now." Gio grumbled. He motioned towards the pokémon on the floor. "How long that thing been in here?"

"Mmm, about forty minutes?" Mewtwo glanced at the clock on the wall. "Nearly an hour."

"I'm probably going to be going to bed myself pretty soon here." Cyrus said, yawning.

"How unfortunate. I'm assuming I can play this alone as well?" Mewtwo turned around to look at Cyrus.

"Yeah, I'll just change game modes. You can press X to change which one you are." Cyrus hooked the joycons together and handed the controller to Mewtwo. When he caught Gio's uncomfortable expression, he considered for a moment how to proceed. "My apartment has a pull-out couch if you don't want to drive home. I can't imagine the couch has been good for your back."

"I think I'll take you up on that." Gio sighed, slowly standing up as nearly every joint in his body creaked or popped.

"Least I can do, I figure." Cyrus shrugged, moving his chair back towards the door. "Mewtwo, Ariana said there's more games on the shelf over there if you get bored with Snipperclips."

"Uh-huh." Mewtwo mumbled, not looking away from the TV as Cyrus and Gio left. "I'll be here."

Gio stumbled as he stepped into the elevator, and was quiet the whole way up to the apartment. Cyrus fumbled somewhat with his key as he unlocked the door, and directed Gio to the couch. Gio limply pulled the cushions from the couch as Cyrus made his way to his own room, quickly showered off, and finally climbed into bed. Holy hell, it was refreshing to be on a real mattress for the first time in so long, with new blankets that still smelled like fabric softener. Getting to sleep in a totally dark room, with the door closed and no bright hall light that cast the shadows of nurses on an hourly basis. He hadn't really thought much about it when he was being given the tour, but it felt spectacular to have a place to call his own, or even just a private area to himself.

Maybe this Rocket thing wouldn't be too bad at all. He'd initially agreed just to escape the monotony of the hospital, and one day in is awfully early to decide whether or not he loved the environment. But he'd found a new hobby— and probably new friends—within hours of coming here, something he'd literally never experienced before. And while he wouldn't say he got along as well with Giovanni as he had with the executives, he didn't feel paranoid about letting Gio stay on the pull-out for the night. Was this a testament to how far his treatment had brought him?

Back in the hospital, the antipsychotics had Cyrus "feeling" again within the first year, and it had been wildly distressing. He remembered crying for the first time in over a decade, and the first time he cried in front of Grandpa Finn; those had been considered enormous milestones. After that first year, however, Cyrus thought his progress, in both physical and psychiatric therapy, had plateaued, but maybe he'd come a little further than he initially thought. And maybe this Rocket business would help him to continue to improve, both in his mental health and socially. Of course, before he could make that decision, he'd need to see how his own experiments go. There was a very real possibility that this could end as badly, if not worse, than his attempts at Spear Pillar. It was entirely possible that this time it would kill him, and all of that progress would be for naught.

But…for some reason, that thought didn't scare him as it may have in the past. Cyrus rolled himself into a loose blanket burrito and closed his eyes, savoring the feeling of the soft fabric on his skin. As he felt himself drifting off, he could just faintly hear Giovanni snore in the living room, barely audible over the hum of the air conditioning. Honchkrow flew silently over to the bed, nestling up close to Cyrus's head, and tucking its beak under its wing.

It was good to be home.


End file.
